Martin And John

(Paperback)

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Description

Martin And John weaves together a number of overlapping and contradicting stories, primarily revisiting the narrator's past sexual relationships, but increasingly offering a 'panorama of American gay men' (Independent). John's encounters range from his first girlfriend, a boy who fleetingly stays in his parents' home, his stepfather, and crucially, his long-term lover Martin, who tragically dies of AIDS. The remainder of this story maps out John's grief as he obsessively seeks a substitute for the one man he truly loved and lost.

Reviews

Praise for Martin and John

[Dale Peck's] wisdom about human feelings, his talent for translating those feelings into prose and his sophisticated mastery of literary form all speak to a maturity that belies his twenty-five years. In short, a stunning debut.
The New York Times

How do you write a novel that describes the impact AIDS has had on you and still take into account all the other people who are suffering the consequences of the disease Dale Peck has come up with his answer in Martin and Johna book that marks the debut of a remarkably accomplished young writer. In this kaleidoscopic novel, separate stories come together to form a shifting picture of gay life in the time of AIDS . . . [Martin and John] simultaneously reflects one mans experience and the experiences of many men.
Entertainment Weekly

Pecks first novel has a dark brilliance and moments of real beauty, but it is a book that is shocking, hard to accept fully, and hard to ignore.
Los Angeles Times

Martin and John is one of the more inspired and brilliant novels that deal not only with AIDS but with the grief and bereavement that are inescapably a part of every life.
The Nation

"Remains a sophisticated literary response to the AIDS crisis."
Los Angeles Review of Books

Alternative readings are the key to Dale Pecks aestheticone so sophisticated and, for the most part, so masterfully realized that it is hard to believe Peck is only twenty-five. This is his first full-length work but, ingeniously, it functions both as a novel and as a collection of short stories . . . Peck can handle notoriously difficult subjectsAIDS, child abuse and sadomasochistic sex not just explicitly, but with a sincerity free of all melodrama. As he orchestrates a structural puzzle of fictions within fictions, he also moves towards a heartwrending autobiographical truth.
The Independent

Dale Peck is what we've been waiting for, a new talent with vast ambitions and a voice like an angel chewing on broken glass. Martin and John launches an important career.
Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours

These are elegant, nightmarish variations on two compressed, mordant themes: love in the time of AIDS and the eternally fragile politics of domestic desire . . . The somber lyricism, the fresh conception of form, the profoundly human grasp of character all suggest this touchingly young writer will have a great future.
Edmund White, author of A Boy's Own Story

Dale Pecks first novel is a wounding, extraordinarily honest story with a promiscuous narrative energy and honed stylistic gift that can only mark the arrival of a prodigious talent.
Dennis Cooper, author of The Marbled Swarm

Martin and John could not have been written at any time but now and not by any other writer than Dale Peck. He is that rare phenomenonan originaland his book is mysterious, solemn and full with feeling.
Susan Minot, author of Rapture

Dale Pecks novel is about the darkness and sexual chaos in the lives of middle-American families, and about love and passion in the midst of plague. From beginning to end, Martin and John is wrenching and unflinchingcharged with the exhilarating magic of a bold, new voice.
Joyce Johnson, author of Minor Characters

Author Bio

Dale Peck's first novel, Martin and John, was hailed as "a brilliant debut" by Michiko Kakutani in 1993. Since then he has published ten more books in a variety of genres. His book of essays, Hatchet Jobs, was labeled the literary scandal of the first decade of the new millennium by New York Magazine, while his novel Sprout won the inaugural Lambda Literary Award for young adult fiction. A winner of a Guggenheim fellowship, two O. Henry Awards, and a Pushcart Prize, Peck is also a member of PEN and the National Book Critics Circle, and an Associate Professor in the New School's Graduate Writing Program.