Lawnboy

by Paul Lisicky

Book Overview

" Lawnboy is, quite simply, the real thing, a novel of mystery and great beauty." --Michael Cunningham They all thought I was good-natured, upright and responsible, generous, affectionate, and kind,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B005M4VJGS
• ISBN13: 9781555974480
• Release Date: June 2006
• Publisher: Graywolf Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

ENCHANTING, MARVELOUS BOOK!

I have rarely been as effected by a work of literature as I was by this book. Lawn Boy is a book that praises the fine miracle of surviving adolescence. Its author possesses the nuance and bravery of a poet (perhaps Bishop?)-- I was charmed. I foresee Lawn Boy's eventual placement within our canon of queer (frustrated and sublime) tales of coming of age. It deserves to rest alongside White's A Boy's Own Story and McCullers' The Member of the Wedding. Bravo!!

You'll want to read it twice

What a beautiful novel. You'll want to read "Lawnboy" twice: once just to enjoy the story itself, and then a second time to savor the wordplay. The narrator, Evan, has a remarkable eye for detail. You'll notice it when he describes every plant in his surroundings (the Florida everglades provide a rich backdrop for this story), when he describes objects, and when he describes a person. He doesn't just merely relate the events as they happen; he also paints sensuous pictures of his experiences by relating the scents and smells of every room he is in and every person he meets. A fascinating and absorbing narrative style for a wonderful story. You will miss Evan when you finish this book.

An astute tale of suburban "gay angst"

Lawnboy is a beautifully realised, erotic and at times wonderfully sexy read from first time author Paul Lisicky. The characterisations are spot on and the story of a young gay guy's emotional and spiritual growth is quite riveting. This is a remarkably bittersweet tale which effectively portrays the "topographical" emotional growth of Evan a seventeen year old "gay everyman" Lisicky sets his novel against the decaying suburban world of South Florida and uses this to symbolically portray the ever existing dysfunctionalilties that can exist in contemporary families. Evan nurtures a private world which is full of sexual and emotional longing and Lisicky effectively juxtaposes this with the indiscriminate ugliness of the landscapes he walks in. Adolescent confusion, the first gay sexual passion, sexuality in the age of AIDS, sibling and parental relationships and the transience of everyday life are all addressed with startling alacrity in this book. There is a genuine compassion evident in Evan's journey through adolescence - witness his first relationship with the older and world weary Willam and its subsequent disintegraton. There is compassion evident in his strained relationship with his overbearing father, ineffectual mother and his sexually ambivalent brother. The passion is evident in his affair with Hector, the sexy urbanite. This leads to ultimate fulfillment in the arms of the affable and altuistic Perry. This is an incedibly naturalistic and gritty piece of work and Lisicky never "sugar coats" or compromises Evan's circumstances and his desperation to be loved. Evan moves on in life and at the end of the novel we hopefully see him grow up. Lawnboy is a wonderful examination of the growth of the young gay male psyche and this is something that I think people whether gay or straight can at some point in their lives relate to.Michael Leonard

Entertaining/disturbing view of interpersonal relationships

Paul Lisicky's Lawnboy is an engrossing excursion that steadily drives through the shallow interpersonal relationships that haunt us at the end of a disillusioning century to the endpoint of introspection. Though enormously sucessful as a storyteller, it is this clinical examination of what has happened to us as individiuals searching for acceptance, for love, for some organization of the chaotic emotional world in which we find ourselves that the author makes this novel so successful. Lisicky's characters are well drawn, and if they seem a bit out of focus when it comes to their cravings and drives, their encounters sexual and otherwise, then it is to his credit that he can so deftly focus on the fears and weaknesses we all harbour. That the characters include gay men/boys is only incidental; there are no stereotypes. Lisicky has managed to paint a visual and cerebral landscape of Florida as a metaphor of how we have misguidedly "improved" a natural landscape much the same as we whittle away at our lives. There are no absolutes here, only glimpses of things gone awry. This is a clarion call for reaccessing the way we take care of each other on this lonely planet.....and this is a VERY fine first novel!

Lisicky has put the human condition under a 3D microscope !!

Lawnboy treats its characters; gay, straight, and undecided with compassion, probity and wit. I couldn't put it down and this coming of age novel of the lead character Evan is a real page turner. Note how the author allows you to smell something on almost every page and how an olfactory evaluation of a person is a language in and of itself. Lawnboy can and should be read and enjoyed by everybody and not considered genre fiction. The author draws the amazing characters well and then sets them in motion as they scramble for the answer to big question: "why are we here, what is worth doing?" and comes up with some great insights. I see hints of Cunningham's Home at the End of the World here but Lisicki is definately an original.