Vanishing Rooms: A Novel [Paperback]

Melvin Dixon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 9, 2001

Prior to Melvin Dixon’s death from AIDS in 1992 when he was on the verge of breaking out as an acclaimed novelist, his talent was compared to that of Toni Morrison and James Baldwin. In Vanishing Rooms, the author amply demonstrates his literary promise with a compelling love story of interracial sex and urban violence set in Manhattan’s West Village in the 1970s.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Completed prior to Dixon's early death from AIDS in 1992, Vanishing Rooms is a lovely, lyrical narrative ballet from a talent who just seemed to be reaching full bloom. It's also a bittersweet suggestion of how that talent might have overcome the occasional pretentious false note to attain true virtuosity had it not been robbed of time. Set in New York City in the fall of 1975, the story shifts fluidly among the voices of Jesse (a young black dancer whose drugged-out white boyfriend Metro has just been brutally murdered by Village gay-bashers), Ruella (a sassy, lonely black female dancer who falls in love with grief-stricken Jesse after taking him in) and Lonny (a 15-year-old, sexually confused Italian street tough so freaked out by his gang's murder of Metro that police find him curled up inside the white chalk outlines of Metro's body on the street the next day). Dixon's poetic and well-honed prose deserves its likening to James Baldwin and Toni Morrison--this despite its regular lapses into Ntozake Shange preciousness, much of it employing the cliche of dancing as a metaphor for human relations, or turning on Jesse's annoying insistence on calling Ruella by the funky nickname "Rooms" (perhaps to echo the title, taken from a Robert Hayden poem). Many of the themes here, too--of the "darker" side of interracial desire, the lasting scars inflicted on black, gay, or otherwise "outsider" childhoods, and the need to either transcend one's demons through art or purge them in a twilit world of drugs and anonymous sex--have become over familiar, especially in the decade since this book was written. But unlike many novels set in NYC between Stonewall and the onset of the plague years, Vanishing Rooms forgoes recreating that frenetic era in all its naturalistic detail for a more broadly brushed, expressionistic landscape. That elegant lens, which Dixon enhances with the chilly, burnished tones of Manhattan in the fall, suffuses Vanishing Rooms with an exquisitely wistful sense of loss--a pressing sense of what we might have hoped for, from Dixon and the rooms his words had yet to fill, that almost undermines this tender novel's considerable accomplishments. --Timothy Murphy

From Publishers Weekly

The disturbing issues of racism and homophobia are forcefully examined in Dixon's provocative new novel (after Trouble the Water ), in which he skillfully illuminates the mixed emotions of distinctive urban characters whose lives are changed by tragedy. When a group of homophobic thugs in Manhattan brutally assaults and murders a Louisiana-born gay white man called Metro, his black lover and roommate, dancer Jesse Duran, begins to see New York as a cold battlefield of racial and sexual hostilities. Seeking solace, Jesse turns to a fellow dancer--a sensitive, self-doubting black woman named Ruella McPhee. The poetically charged narrative depicts Ruella's growing love for Jesse, as well as Jesse's conflicting feelings about his sexuality, and about Ruella and Metro. Utilizing three different voices in alternating chapters, Dixon creates convincing psychological characterizations. He captures a true feminine quality in Ruella's voice; Jesse's ruminations reveal a self-involved person looking for stability. The remaining voice is that of Lonny, a sexually confused 15-year-old who unwittingly contributes to the assault on Metro. This realistic portrait of pain and loss carries strong emotional resonance.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 211 pages
• Publisher: Cleis Press; Reprint edition (June 9, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573441236
• ISBN-13: 978-1573441230
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #869,268 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dancing on Broken Feet, August 28, 2002

By 

Eric Anderson (London, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Vanishing Rooms: A Novel (Paperback)

Vanishing Rooms is an intensely emotional novel. It gives equal voices to three characters: Jesse, a young black dancer who loses his troubled boyfriend Metro; Ruella, a female black dancer who is enamoured with Jesse; and Lonny, a white teenager who prefers the streets and feels he must prove himself to his tough friends. At the centre of the story is the loss of Metro and how it affects all three characters. The death is described flatly, like a piece of impersonal news. This is a contrast to Jesse's deep feelings for him that he describes as akin to his passion for dancing. More than the injustice of this murder, the novel continues on to describe the horrible injustices made toward people who are gay and black as they are forced to be marginal groups of American society. It describes the troubling relationship not only felt in an interracial relationship but also the sad imbalances felt by many gay couples whose definition of monogamy tragically varies. However, the book's attitude toward the varieties of gay life is ambivalent. At one point, Jesse finds himself wandering through a large sex club being led by an older black man who is trying to seduce him. The meaning it has for Jesse is ambivalent. There are wonderful passages describing the scene in a way that is almost hallucinatory. The novel is filled with such morally ambiguous dilemmas such as the way in which Ruella's brother, a convict, arranges special retribution for Metro's death. Ruella's friendship with Jesse is mysterious and their dependency on each other turns out to be for selfish reasons rather than genuine friendship. The delicate relationships are poignantly explored and the ending is characteristic of the character's personalities with their beautifully rendered drama.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is REAL literature!, May 31, 2004

By 

torrid_wind™ (Brooklyn, NY, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vanishing Rooms: A Novel (Paperback)

Examines the private hell of two people connected through a tragedy. Beautifully written with skill, lucidity and polish. This is REAL literature! This book did not get the attention it deserves. It is a MASTERPIECE! Melvin Dixon's name should be mentioned right alongside of James Baldwin's.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Unrecognized Masterpiece!, August 22, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Vanishing Rooms: A Novel (Paperback)

Melvin Dixon was a brilliant black gay man (and Brown University alumnus). Unfortunately his life was cut short by the tragedy of AIDS. In his honor, however, every black gay man should buy this book and read it cover to cover. In this tale, the protagonist goes through a surreal journey in which he finds himself in love with other black men, sexually, spiritually, and politically. When originally released, the critics mocked him by saying, "What do you get when you mix Truman Capote with James Baldwin?" However, this is not an imitation or duplication of other gay authors. This is a black gay masterpiece and if you are truly fierce, you will order it! SNAP!