Recent History - Hardcover

Giardina, Anthony

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679456295 ISBN 13: 9780679456292

Publisher: Random House, 2001

Synopsis

When Luca Carcera is twelve years old, his father moves out under mysterious circumstances. He surfaces across town, in a run-down rooming house, living with another man. Luca is equally surprised by his mother’s burgeoning sexuality after her husband’s departure. And what about Luca’s own adolescent sexual awakening? He has an unusually intense friendship with a boy at school. He’s also drawn to his attractive female neighbor. He can’t choose. He’s overwhelmed by the degree to which sex can shatter the status quo. He shuts down.

We meet Luca again as an adult. His wife wants a child, and that terrifies him. But more terrifyingly still, he’s been married for twelve years — the precise length of time his own father was married when he admitted his feelings for another man — when he gets a phone call that yanks him back to the past he’s tried so hard to ignore. Now he wonders if he’ll do exactly what his father did.

With this extraordinarily intelligent and sensitive exploration of sexuality — what it means to look deep within oneself and resist looking away — Giardina plumbs great emotion depths with his trademark literary grace.

About this title

From the Publisher

Further Reading

Though a vast of and well-documented canon of Gay Literature now exists, the specific subject of Recent History- the manner in which the two tides, gay and straight, meet and mix in the individual body- hasn’t yet produced a significant body of literature.
Of what does exist, the most sensitive treatment I’ve come across is Michael Cunningham’s A Home at the End of the World, about the enduring, sometimes erotic friendship of two young men. William Maxwell’s The Folded Leaf explores the same territory, though, having first been published in 1945, it is sometimes maddeningly elusive about the subject of homosexuality. (Until, that is, one amazing sentence near the end.)

The gay novels that have taught me the most- and that say the most trenchant things about the straight world- are Mark Merlis’ American Studies and David Leavitt’s hilarious novella “The Term Paper Artist”, collected in the volume Arkansas.

Among the literature of earlier periods, I like Marguerite Yourcenar’s Alexis, Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, and D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love, though, even after several readings, it still baffles me exactly what Lawrence was suggesting is possible between straight men. The fault, I’m almost sure, is mine, not Lawrence’s.

Finally, there are a number of plays and films that have treated this material. At the top of the list of plays would be David Rabe’s Streamers, strong in its presentation of the sexual currents drifting around an Army barracks during the time of the Vietnam War, and David Mamet’s Edmond. The French film Wild Reeds, directed by Andre Techine, , may be the most open-minded film I’ve ever seen about young male sexuality, as well as being, in and of itself, a wonderful movie.

From the Back Cover

Praise for Recent History

“Haunting . . . emotionally riveting, reminding us of the importance of accepting love in whatever form it presents itself.”—Entertainment Weekly

“Graceful . . . [Giardina] manages to handle an enormous amount of emotional material with a light touch. . . . [Luca’s] struggle is urgent and real. Giardina makes us care, in the end, what happens to our hero.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“There comes along, every once in a while, a fictional character so compelling that the novel he or she inhabits becomes larger than life. . . . To write such a novel, I believe, is the goal of every writer, and to find such a novel, the hope of every reader. Recent History . . . is such a book.” —The Austin Chronicle

“Giardina has a keen sense of character and an eloquent and soulful style. We are intrigued by his understanding of male sexuality, but we are more captivated by how much he knows about human frailty and growth.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“Giardina’s prose is exquisitely tuned to his characters’ hopes, uncertainties and misgivings.” —The Seattle Times

“Gorgeously written.”
—Chicago Tribune

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0679456295
• ISBN 13: 9780679456292
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 205