Passionate Spectator

The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy #9

by Eric Kraft

In Passionate Spectator , memoirist Peter Leroy and his wife Albertine are living in Manhattan-by the skin of their teeth. Casting about for a source of income, Peter purchases a book from a homeless street corner peddler, Creative Self-Promotion for Taxidermists , hoping he can adapt its techniques to promote his fledgling Memoirs While You Wait , a writing service designed to satisfy the contemporary compulsion for confession and self-revelation.

That book opens into a beguiling journey from fiction to truth and back again, involving Peter, his childhood friend Matthew Barber (a pseudonymous restaurant reviewer who is undergoing emergency heart surgery), and Matthew's witty, urbane alter-ego, Bertram W. Beath-an erotic opportunist and "passionate spectator" of beauty and human folly. As Peter solicits potential clients for his service, he finds that autobiography requires a measure of deception-well, lying-and that his own life depends on fictions he has created and sustained.

Eric Kraft is a novelist like no other, and his books featuring Peter Leroy create an irresistible world where poignancy and nostalgia blend with humor and unbridled invention-a world like our own, but somehow brighter, less predictable, and more fun.

Kirkus Reviews Kraft woolgathers with an energy that would shame a sheep-shearer, and overhearing Peter's evening conversations over martinis with the ineffable Albertine is almost as good as listening to Fibber McGee and Molly on the radio again. More of the same, and may it go on forever. Mark Twain and Will Rogers would have felt right at home with the Leroys.

Genres: Fiction

256 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2004

About the author

Eric Kraft grew up in Babylon, New York, on the South Shore of Long Island, where he was for a time co-owner and co-captain of a clam boat, which sank. He met or invented the character Peter Leroy while dozing over a German lesson during his first year at Harvard. The following year, he married his muse, Madeline Canning; they have two sons. After earning a Master’s Degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Kraft taught school in the Boston area for a while, moonlighting as a rock music critic for the Boston Phoenix. Since then, he has undertaken a variety of hackwork to support the Kraft ménage and the writing of the voluminous work of fiction that he calls The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy. He has been the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts; was, briefly, chairman of PEN New England; and has been awarded the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book delighted me. There were many times when I laughed; the only other authors that have achieved that: Nathaniel Benchley, Perelman, and David Sedaris. Oh, and Jack Handey (no excuses). But Kraft is nothing like these authors. His humor is the humor of the mundane, of daily life.

I think of this book as a cross between a Nicholson Baker novel and a Larry David sitcom. If you enjoy a feeling of surreality/unreality, definitely check this book out.

No spoilers here, but I was impressed with how Kraft wrapped up the book. It was satisfying, and unexpected, as it seemed as though the “plot” had become a tangled mess. Yet Mr. Kraft ended it in a way that made perfect sense.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I enjoyed the unusual plot, I found the author's style of writing too verbose and obscure at times.

[Gil · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can't go wrong with any of Eric Kraft's terrific Peter Leroy reminiscences, as he examines memory and our need to edit them to make them better. Always confessional, these books are hilarious and wise, worth reading aloud to whoever is in earshot. Read them all.

[Glenn Koslowsky Jr · Rating 4 out of 5]

great book about the struggle of one man with many personas. gonna give it a read again very soon.