Martin Bauman: Or, a Sure Thing [Hardcover]

The literary life is given a sound drubbing in this comedy of egos and coming-of-age tale by Leavitt (The Page Turner; While England Sleeps) set in the 1980s of Reaganomics and the dawn of AIDS. Always "ready to pounce on a sure thing," as a classmate describes him, ambitious, gay Martin Bauman, part calculating and part ingenuous, decides in college that he will be a successful novelist and sets out with considerable luck and adroitness to achieve his goal in the New York literary world. Along the way, he meets up with a veritable catalogue of young urban literary types, most notably Liza, a self-centered young novelist who can't decide if she's gay or straight, and Liza's wealthy, dilettantish best friend, Eli, another writer and Martin's primary love interest. The vagaries of Martin's personal relationships, however, are fairly commonplace, much less entertaining than his turbulent professional ascent. Readers hip to the New York book biz will be tickled throughout by Leavitt's thinly veiled satiric references to various literary institutions. In his unnamed eastern urban college, Martin studies under Stanley Flint, a writer, editor and teacher whose eccentricities, power and drive make him a ringer for famed maverick editor Gordon Lish. While still an undergraduate, Martin is lucky enough to publish a story in an unnamed prestigious weekly magazine, probably the New Yorker. After graduation, Martin works for a venerable independent publisher whose adherence to intellectual standards in the face of financial troubles should be easy for readers to identify. Packed with gossipy detail and yet curiously detached in tone, the novel seems part sociological excavation, part intellectual soap opera. Though Martin inflicts at least as much damage as he suffers himself, he is an appealing antihero, inhabiting as he does a world where, as Leavitt eloquently and searingly demonstrates, there is no such thing as a "sure thing." 10-city author tour. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Leavitt's latest is a fictionalized memoir of a young writer's coming of age. While family plays a part, this is a more or less chronological recounting of the protagonist's coming east to attend a prestigious university, studying under the legendary editor Stanley Flint, moving to New York, and accepting his sexuality and early forays into dating and securing a lover. In part, the book reads like an old-fashioned roman ? clef, and fun can admittedly be had figuring out who is whom. In Martin, Leavitt creates a character whose literary talent and ambitions are not necessarily at odds with but certainly outstrip his ability to create a life that is either personally, sexually, or romantically fulfilling. Martin's social fumblingsApresented with characteristic deftness and honestyAare often poignant and funny, and Leavitt's portrait of a time and place are masterly. Nevertheless, the overall effect is surprisingly cool and distant. For this readerAan admitted fan of Leavitt's fictionAthe decision to present this material as a novel is squarely unsatisfying. Granted that the line between fiction and memoir is less clear now than ever before, one still wishes that Leavitt had thrown aside the pretense of fiction and presented us with a work as creatively conceived and emotionally intense as Martin Amis's Experience. Until then, one should stick to Leavitt's novels, where life enters art more obliquely.
-ABrian Kenney, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.