Passionate Spectator: A Novel [Paperback]

Eric Kraft (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 16, 2005

In Passionate Spectator, memoirist Peter Leroy and his wife Albertine are living by the skin of their teeth in Manhattan. Casting about for a source of income, Peter purchases a book from a homeless peddler, Creative Self-Promotion for Taxidermists, hoping he can adapt its techniques to promote his fledgling business: Memoirs While You Wait. That book opens into a beguiling journey from fiction to truth and back again, involving Peter, his childhood friend Matthew Barber (who is undergoing emergency heart surgery), and Peter’s witty, urbane alter-ego, Bertram W. Beath--an erotic opportunist and "passionate spectator"of life's pageant.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In his 10th novel featuring the irrepressible Peter Leroy, Kraft steers his engaging protagonist into the thickets of freelance writing as Leroy attempts to fund a series of unusual adventures by helping others write their memoirs. Leroy lives in New York City, where he and his pianist wife, Albertine, maintain a precarious existence short on money but long on compassionate understanding. As the novel begins, Leroy is itching to slip again into one (or several) of his elaborate fantasies ("I am a crowd... one of the people one passes on a New York street who hear inner voices"). Albertine ("I have heard her referred to as my long-suffering wife") acts as his enabler, gently encouraging him to indulge his flights of fancy and experiment with alter egos. The scene switches from New York to Boston and then to Miami as Leroy assumes the imaginary identities of Matthew Barber, a heart patient, and Bertram Beath, a lothario who makes a habit of sleeping with total strangers. Meanwhile, Leroy's memoir-writing business languishes, though he expands it to include pets. It's not always clear what Leroy remembers from previous forays as Barber and Beach, and what triggers his transformations, but the reader is distracted from any minor inconsistencies by Leroy's endearing frankness and Albertine's wry, tolerant wit.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Kraft continues the charming and mischievously intellectual adventures of the eccentric writer Peter Elroy--last seen in Inflating a Dog (2002)--in the newest installment in a long-running series relishable for its clever literary allusions (from Proust to Twain), shrewd philosophical satire, and faith in love and loyalty. Peter and his doting wife, Albertine, have left Long Island for Manhattan, and Peter is anxious to promote his current esoteric venture, Memoirs While You Wait. But he is distracted by two friends (or are they merely persistent figments of his imagination?) intent on telling him their stories: hapless Matthew Barber, who lands in a hospital cardiac care unit, and blithe Bertram W. Beath, a "passionate spectator" who insouciantly bluffs his way into erotic interludes with spectacular women. Meanwhile, Peter--whose credo is "Life, of course, is just the first draft of our memoirs"--is called to jury duty, where a clerk presents his own solipsistic theories about memory, veracity, and the nature of the self. And Kraft? He's as ebullient, canny, and entertaining as ever. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Picador (June 16, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312424841
• ISBN-13: 978-0312424848
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,896,353 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Eric Kraft grew up in Babylon, New York, on the South Shore of Long Island, where he was for a time co-owner and co-captain of a clam boat, which sank. He studied English at Harvard, where he invented the character Peter Leroy while dozing over a German lesson during his first year. The following year, he married his muse, Madeline Canning; they now have two sons.

After earning a Master's Degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Kraft taught school in the Boston area for a while, moonlighting as a rock music critic for the Boston Phoenix. After a series of positions in editing and publishing, Kraft and his wife founded Kraft & Kraft, an editorial-services company for educational publishers. Throughout the years, he wrote daily, trying to discover the stories that Peter Leroy had to tell.

Eric Kraft is the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and was, briefly, chairman of PEN New England. He is also a recipient of the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature.

Learn more at www.erickraft.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "we order our affairs according to our illusions", September 6, 2004

By 

Mark Forrester "themisfit" (Hyattsville, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Passionate Spectator: A Novel (Hardcover)

It's difficult to describe the pleasures I gain from the work of Eric Kraft. Through his character Peter Leroy, a charming romantic whose daydreams allow him to rewrite not only his past but his present and future as well, Kraft explores the slippery (if not entirely illusory) boundaries between yesterday and today, between reality and imagination, between ourselves and the strangers around us. All of this is accomplished with a delightfully graceful style and an admirable generosity toward his characters and his readers. I can imagine nothing more fulfilling than to live in the world of an Eric Kraft novel, and I am grateful that each new book (and Passionate Spectator is one of his best) allows me this opportunity.

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderstuck, delightfully wonderstruck, May 26, 2010

By 

Schmadrian - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Passionate Spectator: A Novel (Paperback)

Now, before you go thinking that I'm crushin' on Eric Kraft's book... I'm not. I mean, I am awarding it a 9/10, so it's not like I'm 'Meh' about it. But my sentiments have more to do with his talents than what Mr. Kraft presents here, in this Peter Leroy novel. (If that makes any sense at all.)

Anyone who's read any of my reviews knows that I just love to witness 'a writer bein' a writer', the kind of writer you can't help but shake your head in wonder at once they're up to speed. (Sometimes anticipating that speed can be as lovely an experience as the cruising velocity itself. That too, is part of a great writer's skill; think of it as being akin to a great lover's ability to bring on swooning before even a kiss is applied.) The thing about Mr. Kraft is that it's not so much what he says, or even how he says it...just that he pulls you along in so effortless -yet confident- a way that you feel swept up, caught up, a little lost in his momentum.

I loved the banter between the lead character and his wife; I fell in love with both her and their marriage. In fact, I felt a voyeur at first, then an invited guest...then something even more intimate by novel's end.

I also loved the sub-stories, the 'other parts' of Peter Leroy, his alter-egos, his constituent selves. In fact, I probably loved these tales more than the core one, especially the interlude between B.W. and 'the Rebel Angel', in which we get both naughtiness and polemic, executed within a perfect mélanage of rollicking holding-forth and subtley insinuated double-entendres. Exquisite stuff, indeed.

Some of what the author presents us is elfin-like in its qualities. Other bits are the full-blooded stuff of a raconteur's wry retellings. No matter what the tone, the novel entertains. Perhaps its greatest charm lies in this variance.

Returning to a theme referenced in a previous review, Mr. Kraft doesn't offer up a chef's extravaganza. It's more a simple sandwich and side-dishes, served with a perfectly chosen libation. But at the end of it all, you stare at the picked-clean plates, the empty mug, and wonder if you've ever had so satisfying a meal.

I've come to late to Mr. Kraft's series of Peter Leroy-focused novels, but I'm looking foward quite hungrily to devouring the rest.

Personal rating: 9/10

4.0 out of 5 stars A little disappointed., February 27, 2005

By 

Suz "suzbooks" (Pawtucket, RI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Passionate Spectator: A Novel (Hardcover)

I'm a fan of Eric Kraft and have read all his books. I've enjoyed them all. But Peter, what's the matter? Is it a mid-life crisis?
I have always enjoyed your adventures, but these are too sad. When you sit down to write again, please write some more childhood reminiscences. I understand that you may have wanted to get things off your chest, but the philosophizing is too random. And next time, let's hear more from Albertine and all those quirky characters from your past. Cheer up! Life is too short to be taken quite so seriously.