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Lord Byron #3
Childish Loves
When his former colleague Peter Sullivan dies, Ben Markovits inherits unpublished manuscripts about the life of Lord Byron—including the novels Imposture and A Quiet Adjustment. Ben’s own literary career is in the doldrums, and he tries to revive it by publishing and writing about his dead friend, whose reimagining of Byron’s lost memoirs—titled Childish Loves—may provide a key to Sullivan’s own life and tarnished reputation.
Acting as a literary sleuth, Ben sorts through boxes of Sullivan’s writing; reads between the lines of his scandalous, Byron- inspired stories; meets with the Society for the Publication of the Dead; and tracks down people from Peter’s past in an effort to untangle rumor from reality. In the process, he crafts a masterful story-within-a-story that turns on uncomfortable questions about childhood and sexual awakening, innocence and attraction, while exploring the lives of three very different writers and their brushes with success and failure in both literature and life.
Acting as a literary sleuth, Ben sorts through boxes of Sullivan’s writing; reads between the lines of his scandalous, Byron- inspired stories; meets with the Society for the Publication of the Dead; and tracks down people from Peter’s past in an effort to untangle rumor from reality. In the process, he crafts a masterful story-within-a-story that turns on uncomfortable questions about childhood and sexual awakening, innocence and attraction, while exploring the lives of three very different writers and their brushes with success and failure in both literature and life.
416 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2011
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134 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 7, 2018
‘All this business about Peter’s life, and what you can read into it from his novels. I’m sympathetic, but has it occurred to you what it will look like to people who aren’t?’
‘How will it look?’
He didn’t answer at first, so I went on. ‘Maybe you’re right about the critics. But most readers assume automatically that writers write novels to write about themselves. It’s harder to persuade them that something in a book isn’t true than that it is.’
The above exchange captures what is at the heart of this very meta novel. Ben Markovits (the writer) has inserted himself as Ben Markovits (the character), a writer who has been sent unpublished novels written by an old friend, Peter Sullivan, who has died. Peter’s work, about Byron, is interspersed with stories of Ben’s life. Ben compares what his friend has written to the true history of Byron to see if he can discover more about Peter’s life by what he has invented and inserted in to the narrative. He is driven to do so by a rumour about Peter, who was fired after twenty years of teaching at a private school after talk he was sexually involved with a student.
It’s an incredibly thoughtful book – I’ve only read one other by Markovits (You Don’t Have to Live Like This) and the same could be said for that. I feel that if I read his work more often I might be a more considerate, patient person, as his writing has that rare quality of fairly and accurately assessing people and situations, rationally working out what motivates people and observing them without assigning them agendas based on assumptions.
I enjoyed the parts from Ben’s point of view far more than the parts about Byron, though these too were entertaining.
‘How will it look?’
He didn’t answer at first, so I went on. ‘Maybe you’re right about the critics. But most readers assume automatically that writers write novels to write about themselves. It’s harder to persuade them that something in a book isn’t true than that it is.’
The above exchange captures what is at the heart of this very meta novel. Ben Markovits (the writer) has inserted himself as Ben Markovits (the character), a writer who has been sent unpublished novels written by an old friend, Peter Sullivan, who has died. Peter’s work, about Byron, is interspersed with stories of Ben’s life. Ben compares what his friend has written to the true history of Byron to see if he can discover more about Peter’s life by what he has invented and inserted in to the narrative. He is driven to do so by a rumour about Peter, who was fired after twenty years of teaching at a private school after talk he was sexually involved with a student.
It’s an incredibly thoughtful book – I’ve only read one other by Markovits (You Don’t Have to Live Like This) and the same could be said for that. I feel that if I read his work more often I might be a more considerate, patient person, as his writing has that rare quality of fairly and accurately assessing people and situations, rationally working out what motivates people and observing them without assigning them agendas based on assumptions.
I enjoyed the parts from Ben’s point of view far more than the parts about Byron, though these too were entertaining.
August 8, 2017
The most enjoyable of the trilogy, in spite of the metafictional conceits. Unlike some postmodern navel-gazing, Markovits' premise of found manuscripts at least has historical precedent going for it: loads of 18th- and 19th-century British fiction appeared pseudonymously as a discovered text. The 'author' was just the editor of papers he or she found. So it makes sense that a set of novels set in the early 19th century might employ this device. Here in the conclusion to this trilogy, 'Ben Markovits' the character appears, the author to whom the original manuscripts of "Imposture" and "A Quiet Adjustment" were bequeathed by an erstwhile colleague. 'Ben' has already overseen the publication of the first two books when this starts. He is engaged in perhaps seeking publication for the fragments of the third installment, along with pursuing whatever information he can about their author Peter Sullivan. A prep school teacher like 'Ben' once was (this was how they met), Peter is a figure of some Byronic complexity or perhaps just deviancy. He likes boys. 'Ben' pursues this mystery about as far as he can. The pursuit leads him back home and into a possibly fraught friendship with an old high school crush, eventually putting pressure on his marriage. The Byron sections seem perhaps a bit freer this time and thus more enjoyable because Peter, er 'Ben', er Ben, is finally able to just make shit up: Byron's final memoirs were famously burned. So the passages of Byron's final days as narrated by Peter/'Ben'/Ben contain some rather fine elegiac writing that seems plausible enough as a window into the fast-declining soul of the poet. There is a certain unrequited breathless quality to the pursuit of Peter that the rather more fluidly paced and lapidary quality of the Byron sections makes up for. Other pleasures here. Markovits reacting to reviews of the first two novels by Peter. It's kind of fun to hear him mildly taking the piss at himself and the reviewers of books he himself composed. Also entertaining was the character Henry Jeffries (who surely is a thinly disguised James Wood?). Overall a pleasurable conclusion to a sometimes slow-going series of novels that seek less to pluck out the heart of Byron's mystery than to dance around the edges of it, which seems about right.
June 19, 2025
I didn’t expect to enjoy this but I learnt loads about publishing novels!
September 9, 2011
Childish Loves
is really two completely different works. Half the book focuses on the fictional Ben Markovits, who inherits several unpublished manuscripts from a recently deceased colleague. After having the manuscripts published and seeing them gain more fame and attention than his own work, Mr. Markovits sets off on a journey to find out more about his deceased colleague.
It seemed to me that his goal was not just to find out more about the man, but to find out how much a reader can really learn about a writer through his work. I found this part of the book to be engaging, extremely well written and thought provoking.
The other portion of the book was excerpts from the unpublished manuscripts of his dead colleague, which consisted of the fictional diary entries of Lord Byron. It was hard for me to focus on these chapters. I didn't really understand how they were tying in with the rest of the book, or if they were, and I just kept wondering when we'd get back to the storyline that was actually interesting.
Overall, the sections of the book focusing on the fictional journey of Mr. Markovits' were excellent and I'd give them 5 stars. The Lord Byron fan fic sections really didn't work for me and as a complete work, the book felt disjointed.
p.s. I received a copy of this book from the publisher via the Goodreads First Reads program
It seemed to me that his goal was not just to find out more about the man, but to find out how much a reader can really learn about a writer through his work. I found this part of the book to be engaging, extremely well written and thought provoking.
The other portion of the book was excerpts from the unpublished manuscripts of his dead colleague, which consisted of the fictional diary entries of Lord Byron. It was hard for me to focus on these chapters. I didn't really understand how they were tying in with the rest of the book, or if they were, and I just kept wondering when we'd get back to the storyline that was actually interesting.
Overall, the sections of the book focusing on the fictional journey of Mr. Markovits' were excellent and I'd give them 5 stars. The Lord Byron fan fic sections really didn't work for me and as a complete work, the book felt disjointed.
p.s. I received a copy of this book from the publisher via the Goodreads First Reads program
September 4, 2012
I won this through GoodReads First Reads. I started it months ago. I got 78 pages in, put it down, and haven't had any desire to pick it back up. I just couldn't get into it. It was really boring. So I'm officially giving up on it.
Want to read
October 12, 2011Received free as part of the goodreads.com giveaways program on 8/26/11.
Want to read
August 21, 2011Won in Goodreads giveaway. Review coming soon.
August 31, 2016
Didn't finish this one. It had a strange rhythm to it, like it wanted to be mysterious, but there wasn't enough there to flesh out the mystery.
Want to read
August 14, 2011karen should win this giveaway! She loves Byron more than anyone.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews