The Night Listener

by Armistead Maupin

Book Overview

"With rare authority, humor and stunning grace, Armistead Maupin (Tales of the City) explores the risks and consolations of intimacy while illuminating the mysteries of the storytelling impulse. Noone's will to make the world more gorgeous, dramatic and satisfying than it is betrays much about the measure of the human heart." --Chicago Tribune

"I'm a fabulist by trade," warns Gabriel Noone, a late-night radio...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 006093090X
• ISBN13: 9780060930905
• Release Date: September 2001
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.3" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜💗🤍

In a love-hate relationship with this book. I loved the concept of the story but felt that the details were too much, I found myself skimming through the pages to get to the really good parts.Even if I did not read those parts, I still understand the main idea of the story.

Fiction within Fiction!!!

Maupin is such an expert at blurring the lines between the truth and fiction. Can this be based on his own life, or is it just more fiction and not really fact? We really don't know when we are done reading this book, but what a wonderful experience it is. Maupin's books are always full of surprises, and this one is no exception. If you want closure when you read this book, you are going to be disappointed. However, that can be good because when you're done reading this book, you're going to be really thinking and wondering for a long time about the details of this story, and that's the sign of a great book that you're not going to forget. There is nothing predictable here, and I promise you that you won't be able to put the book down till you're finished. I didn't. It's a very touching story, full of emotion, and lots of love. Gabriel Noone's emotional relationship in helping an ailing thirteen year old boy, Pete Lomax, who has suffered terrible abuse by the hands of his parents, is a very moving story. Armistead Maupin is one of the best authors we have today. I always look forward to his next book. Now I just want to know when the movie will be released!!!

I speaks to universal themes, in an unusual package

This book was startlingly good. Not that I would ever think that Armistead Maupin could write a book I wouldn't like (he could write a book about paint drying and it would be interesting in some way), but I was wondering if I'd find the story as interesting as the TOTC series.After reading a couple of chapters, thinking I'd finish it upon returning home, I was hooked. Before I knew it I had read 1/2 the book. I finished it the next night. When I was done, I was in shock. I have read many books, but NONE have ever made me feel the emotions I felt reading this book. No book ever made me actually cry, and for an extended period of time too. People should read this book even if they think its subject matter (gay relationships, child abuse, famous authors, etc.) would not appeal to them. I'm not gay, I don't know anyone who has been abused like Pete Lomax was as a child, and I am not a published author, and yet I found this book and the emotions and feelings it described were universal themes relevant to my own life and things I was going through at the time I bought the book and previously. It was a very moving experience .

Art Imitating Life?

Armistead Maupin is a master story teller. I remember reading the first "Tales of the City" book and feeling that I was lost in a magical world. A feeling that no book has replicated for me, until the Harry Potter stories.Now Maupin returns with "The Night Listener", a book that seems closer to his own life story than anything he has previously written.In it his narrator, Gabriel Noone is a novelist struggling with writers block, and a breakup of his long term relationship with Jess, his former lover. After a publisher sends him the galley of a nonfiction book about a young boy, Pete Lomax, who was horribly abused sexually, he develops a friendship with the boy via the telephone. As their relationship grows, Gabriel and Pete develop a surrogate father son bond. This causes Gabriel to question his relationship with his own father, while at the same time resorting the scattered puzzle that was his life with Jess. Suddenly Maupin concocts a scenerio for a genuine page turning mystery as Gabriel attempts to discover the truth about Pete.The premise for the book is where the headtrip started for me, in part because Maupin so successfully blurs the lines between truth and fiction. The boys' story, which is loosely recounted in the novel, appears to be verbatim from a book called, 'A Rock and a Hard Place'. I had read the book years ago, and was deeply moved by it. At the time it was published it created a stir because many people wondered if the eloquent and brave boy actually existed. A similar scenario wields its's head here. Maupin also recently split from his longtime companion, Terry Anderson on whom the character Jess might be based. The fun of all this is never really knowing what's fact or fiction. Maupin seems to be deliberately bluring the reality line between his own life, and the lives he created in "Tales..." by inserting a character from the "Tales..." series to layer the book like an onion skin. Maupin's Gabriel Noone says he's a "fabulist by trade" who's "spent years looting his life for fiction." Again, that could be the character talking or the author. Regardless, we as the readers are richer for it.

Worth the Wait

I saw Armistead Maupin read from this (then unpublished)novel during the spring of 1999 in London. (Ian McKellan was in the audience, just days after losing the Oscar for "Gods and Monsters"). I knew hearing the first chapters that this was going to be a special book, and I waited a year and a half to finally get my hands on a finished copy. It did not disappoint. Let me highlight some of what the other reviews overlooked: for one, this novel includes a cameo appearance by a couple of AM's better known characters (hint: they were kids during the "Tales" books) and has an twist-in-the-tale ending that is classic Maupin. In fact the entire book is a reminder of what made the "Tales" series so irresistable: like a literary hologram, the characters in AM's books are often not what they appear to be, or are they? I can see what Maupin is going for here: our need for face value trust belies the greater truth of the humanity that lies beneath the surface of our packaging. The fact that he writes about this truth with a gentle touch makes the realization all the more moving. This book is a great comeback, completely worth the wait.

Wonderful, Wonderful, Wonderful

I was so excited to hear the Armistad Maupin was coming out with another book. After reading and hearing about it, I decided to pick up a 3-part gally of his book at a bookstore I work for. Seriously, this only took me one sitting. The story surrounds a NPR radio host, Grabriel Noone, who was going through writer's block. In addition to his difficulty in writing, his boyfriend left him. After reading a gally written by a 12-year-old boy, who is a fan of Gabriel's funny and lyrical radio show, Gabriel contacts the ill-fated boy, named Pete, and becomes friends with him. As their friendship progresses, Gabriel starts telling Pete his problems and hardships in his life. Pete listens and gives advice to Gabriel, which helps him. BUT, the question is: DOES this boy exist? Is Pete an actual person? With many people doubting Pete's extistence, Gabriel goes out to find pete, and prove he exists. This is a FANTASTIC piece of work from Armistad Maupin. Gabriel goes through a journey of life, in dealing with his ex-boyfriend, his family (particuarly his father), and himself. THE NIGHT LISTENER is a triumph, with a climax that will make you think and wonder for days. This is one book you will have a hard time putting down, let alone wishing it never ended.