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The Night Listener : A Novel

The Night Listener : A Novel

Titel: The Night Listener : A Novel
Autoren: Armistead Maupin
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obsession, then his salvation. He would write on it for hours at a time, oblivious to everything around him, dizzy with the discovery that words could contain his suffering.
    And sometimes, when the ward was dark, he’d listen to the radio.
    There was a TV above his bed, but he never turned it on. He had seen his own torment on such a screen, so its unrelenting literalness was not his idea of escape. But radio let his mind roam to a secret place where no one’s face reminded him of anyone else’s. His favorite show was a man who told stories late at night, stories about people caught in the supreme joke of modern life who were forced to survive by making families of their friends. The man’s voice was low and soothing, the voice of an understanding father.
    And often, though Pete knew better, it seemed to be speaking to Pete alone.

     
    TWO

    THE NOONES

    “WELL,” SAID ASHE FINDLAY on the phone the next morning. “I thought I might be hearing from you.”
    The editor’s voice was just as I’d remembered it: the tart nasality of a Yankee blue blood. I could all too easily sketch in the rest: the frayed pink oxford-cloth shirt, the crooked bow tie and brambled eyebrows, the whole tiresome Cheeveresque thing.
    “That kid is amazing,” I said.
    “Isn’t he, though?”
    “I’d be glad to do a blurb.”
    “Splendid.” He paused significantly before continuing. “I take it you got to the end.”
    “I finished it, yes.”
    “So you know what a fan you have.”
    “Yes,” I said evenly. “I was touched.”
    “Pete asked especially that you be sent the galleys. He’s never missed one of your shows.”
    I fought the urge to bask in this flattery. I wanted Findlay to know that the boy’s talent alone was enough to sustain my interest. “Is he okay?” I asked. “His health?”
    “For the moment. He’s a tough little fellow. A survivor, if ever there was one.”
    I told him that’s what I loved about the book: the way Pete never stooped to self-pity, even in his bleakest moments. And he was so funny about it sometimes, so bluntly matter-of-fact about the most horrendous hardships. Who would have thought that the late discovery of love by a boy facing death could ever be construed as a happy ending?
    “How in the world did you come by it?” I asked.
    The editor indulged in a chuckle at his own expense. “An utter fluke. His AIDS counselor knows one of the secretaries in our trade division. It just landed on my desk.”
    “Did it take a lot of editing?”
    Another chuckle. “Hate to break it to you. It was one of the cleanest manuscripts I’ve handled all year.”
    “Jesus.”
    “I had to pull him back here and there. He’d use a ten-dollar word when a tencent one would do. But children do that, don’t they?”
    “I’m completely in awe,” I said. “Actually…” I found myself fal-tering for reasons I couldn’t identify. Modesty? Embarrassment?
    Some ancient, ingrained fear of rejection?
    “What?” prompted the editor.
    “Well, I just wondered if it would make sense for me to tell him this myself.”
    “You mean call him?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I should think he’d be thrilled. Certainly. Let me check with Donna first. I’m sure it’ll be okay, considering…you know, how he regards you.”
    “If it’s a bad time or something…”
    “No, they’d be delighted. I’ll ring you in a day or two.”
    “Great.”
    “He’s a good kid. And you’ll like her, too.” I told him I couldn’t imagine that I wouldn’t.
    “How’s your own writing coming along?”
    This was a query born of etiquette, not interest. Findlay’s literary taste ran to Updike and Lessing, the (old) New Yorker and the Paris Review . He couldn’t have cared less about my feel-good penny dreadfuls. Ours was just a marriage of convenience. If he valued me at all, it was because some clever person upstairs had decided to angle Pete’s book to “the AIDS market.” The fact that Findlay’s curiosity wasn’t genuine made it easier to answer him candidly. In fact, I confessed something that I had yet to tell my own editor: that I’d grown less and less in love with the act of arranging words on a page. And that it might be a permanent condition.
    “You mean you’re blocked?”
    “That’s a little optimistic,” I said. “It assumes there is something to block in the first place.”
    “Oh, Gabriel, come now!”
    “It’s the truth,” I said, oddly touched that he had used my name.
    It seemed such an
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