the kingdom of sand a novel andrew holleran

“As long as I went there, I never saw Earl once open the vertical blinds that covered the sliding glass doors that led outside. Earl’s home is an airless, tidily ordered sanctum of records and movies fussily cataloged on index cards. But if their friendship is cozy, Holleran also makes it slightly funereal. The narrator simply swings by Earl’s to make small talk and watch movies. They first met at the boat ramp when the narrator was in his early 40s, and though there was no romantic or erotic spark, they’re content with their casual, platonic relationship.

That feeling is underscored by the narrator’s friendship with Earl, a man about 20 years his senior. Yet he’s realizing that his pursuits don’t deliver the validation he craves, that there’s little joy in chasing “the same quintet of egg-shaped men in baggy T-shirts.” While he’s still healthy, he staves off the inevitable by trying too hard - proving his virility by consuming porn and cruising a local boat ramp and video store, hoping for connection. The narrator has experienced plenty of loss: Living in north central Florida, he catalogs the deaths of his parents, his friends and perhaps his nearing own. In such a collection, “Sand” would feel like a summation of Holleran’s work, circling tighter than ever around matters of desire and mortality. Regardless, a Library of America volume would be the least he deserves. Blame the long waits between books, or a mainstream literary culture that’s often treated LGBTQ fiction as a niche enterprise. His essays and other works of fiction are similarly rooted in the lives of gay men, but his Jamesian powers of observation haven’t translated into major prizes or name recognition. His 2006 novel, “ Grief,” is a melancholy masterpiece about how so many of those men were cut down by AIDS. Holleran’s debut, 1978’s “ Dancer From the Dance,” is among the great post-Stonewall novels, capturing the fading youth of a coterie of gay New York men. Which is to say that it continues the project Holleran began four decades ago: elegant, contemplative works obsessed with matters of intimacy and loss.

“This story is about the things we accumulate during a lifetime but cannot bear to part with before we die,” its unnamed narrator explains. Andrew Holleran’s fifth novel, “ The Kingdom of Sand,” announces its theme early.

The kingdom of sand a novel andrew holleran