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The Beauty of Men: An Acclaimed Gay Literature Novel of Finding Love Among Gay Men During the AIDS Crisis
A universal tale of loneliness, aging, and the desires of the human heart, Holleran's long-awaited third novel tells the brilliant, passionate story of a man ashamed to be mourning the loss of his own youth as so many around him die young. Lark is obsessed with the beauty of youth and his own mortality, his hairline and the loss of so many of his friends to AIDS, and, above all, with a stunningly virile man who haunts his days and his dreams.
288 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1996
45 people are currently reading
1751 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Holleran
31 books331 followersBorn in 1943. Andrew Holleran is the pseudonym of Eric Garber, a novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is a prominent novelist of post-Stonewall gay literature. He was a member of The Violet Quill, a gay writer's group that met briefly from 1980-81.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 89 reviews
January 6, 2015
Selected by my boyfriend after an argument where he accused me of never reading the books he recommends to me, I was disappointed that the entire reading experience made me feel like a passive witness, recognizing the undeniable literary brilliance, but only feeling it at a distant, cold remove. This was particularly disappointing considering this is one of his very favorite books. Rather than empathizing with the overwhelming despondency over the way the AIDs crisis, geographical isolation, personal circumstances, and unreciprocated desire has left the main character's life in a state of utter ruin, I was surprised to find myself more wrapped up in–and ultimately moved by–the gut-wrenching sadness hovering over his mother's debilitating health condition(s). I still find it a bit mystifying that I generally seem more capable of relating to the queer literary output of the pre-Stonewall era than the literature that blossomed under the advancement of the Gay Rights Movement, and while acknowledging its great accomplishment, literary skill and observational acuity, The Beauty of Men ultimately reaffirmed this situation yet again.
[Capsule review from the post My Year of Reading Queerly over at my blog, Queer Modernisms.]
[Capsule review from the post My Year of Reading Queerly over at my blog, Queer Modernisms.]
July 29, 2015
More than a book about the aftermath of the AIDS crisis this is really a book about aging in a youth obsessed gay culture. I had made the decision to read all of Holleran’s work after reading Dancer from the Dance and Grief, but after reading this book and Nights in Aruba, I am rethinking.
Ultimately concern about growing old, especially to this mid-life crisis level presented in the book, just seems so vain. I’ve heard this story before from others, how they are now invisible when they go into a bar after they reach a certain age. These same people will acknowledge that they treated older men the same way when they were younger but are now painting themselves as the victim when it happens to them, as if a 20 year old was looking to hook up with someone who’s 60 on a Saturday night.
I don’t really understand this and I don’t have much patience for it. When I went out when I was younger I never went for the best looking guy in the place, I went for someone uniquely attractive to me and let my attitude and enthusiasm carry me through. My personality has only gotten better with age, easier to control, so I don’t feel I’ve lost anything.
I found the sections of the book about Becker, Lark’s ideal and one-night fling almost impossible to read, I’m reading them looking through my fingers because I’m cringing so much. Even Lark’s rationale for loving Becker is flawed, as this passage about late-night trysting place the boat ramp reveals:
“But that’s why I love Becker. He doesn’t go to the boat ramp! He went that one night just to see what it was like. And he’s never been back since. He said he liked to talk to people first. He’s the exception to the boat ramp. An escape from the boat ramp.”
So Lark goes to the boat ramp to meet someone who doesn’t go to the boat ramp. Do you know how many gay men do this with the bars to this day? It’s maddening and self-destructive and if you can’t get yourself off this cycle I don’t really have time for sympathy.
The book is well written, as is all of Holleran’s work, and full of great observations:
“The functional disappear at the baths almost immediately: They are having sex. The dysfunctional remain in view, sitting in the TV lounge or on a bench in the locker room, like Lark—a penitent in the street before Santiago de Compostela, asking only the pity of the passerby.”
I just wish the characters were a little more aware of themselves. I did like Eddie, the 70 year-old man who cruises during the day like others play golf, it keeps him busy. He goes home to his dog at night and Lark sees it as terrible, every gay man’s worst nightmare, getting old alone. I see Lark’s life as the nightmare, caught up in the past and unable to live in reality. Give me a dog over this any day.
Ultimately concern about growing old, especially to this mid-life crisis level presented in the book, just seems so vain. I’ve heard this story before from others, how they are now invisible when they go into a bar after they reach a certain age. These same people will acknowledge that they treated older men the same way when they were younger but are now painting themselves as the victim when it happens to them, as if a 20 year old was looking to hook up with someone who’s 60 on a Saturday night.
I don’t really understand this and I don’t have much patience for it. When I went out when I was younger I never went for the best looking guy in the place, I went for someone uniquely attractive to me and let my attitude and enthusiasm carry me through. My personality has only gotten better with age, easier to control, so I don’t feel I’ve lost anything.
I found the sections of the book about Becker, Lark’s ideal and one-night fling almost impossible to read, I’m reading them looking through my fingers because I’m cringing so much. Even Lark’s rationale for loving Becker is flawed, as this passage about late-night trysting place the boat ramp reveals:
“But that’s why I love Becker. He doesn’t go to the boat ramp! He went that one night just to see what it was like. And he’s never been back since. He said he liked to talk to people first. He’s the exception to the boat ramp. An escape from the boat ramp.”
So Lark goes to the boat ramp to meet someone who doesn’t go to the boat ramp. Do you know how many gay men do this with the bars to this day? It’s maddening and self-destructive and if you can’t get yourself off this cycle I don’t really have time for sympathy.
The book is well written, as is all of Holleran’s work, and full of great observations:
“The functional disappear at the baths almost immediately: They are having sex. The dysfunctional remain in view, sitting in the TV lounge or on a bench in the locker room, like Lark—a penitent in the street before Santiago de Compostela, asking only the pity of the passerby.”
I just wish the characters were a little more aware of themselves. I did like Eddie, the 70 year-old man who cruises during the day like others play golf, it keeps him busy. He goes home to his dog at night and Lark sees it as terrible, every gay man’s worst nightmare, getting old alone. I see Lark’s life as the nightmare, caught up in the past and unable to live in reality. Give me a dog over this any day.
January 22, 2008
This is a very controlled novel about isolation. Published in 1997, it is the story of a gay man who has been almost entirely cut off by the gay community. Because of the AIDS crisis, he finds virtually no gay men his age to befriend. Younger men have no desire to know him, for a variety of reasons: He is not young, he is not powerful and he is not wealthy. Above all, the specter of AIDS causes other gay men to be wary of him. He is a pariah among gay men due to his date of birth.
This novel could have been maudlin or preachy. Instead, it is intense without being shocking and angry without being rageful.
The prose is graceful.
I would recommend this to any serious student of literature.
This novel could have been maudlin or preachy. Instead, it is intense without being shocking and angry without being rageful.
The prose is graceful.
I would recommend this to any serious student of literature.
April 14, 2025
I read this book years ago, probably longer than the read date here, I've probably read twice if not more at least in part. Andrew Holleran is far too good a writer for me to criticise on a literary level, but I do wonder exactly how this novel will read to a younger audience.
I've just checked my brief review for 'Kingdom of Sand' in which I called this novel 'hauntingly beautiful', I'd read but hadn't reviewed 'Grief', and although I would not withdraw my 'hauntingly beautiful' accolade I am not sure it is enough to recommend the book. From this novel through 'Grief' and finally 'Kingdom of Sand' Andrew Holleran has been telling us of his existential crisis of getting old, finding he was no longer able to attract the younger men he fancied, his depressing life in small town Florida and commitment to caring for his severely handicapped mother (of which more later). As a lament for what growing old means it lacks everything that W.B. Yeats said in 'When You Grow Old':
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
I can't help feeling that not only has Holleran failed to match the emotions of Yeats, never mind his brevity, and he certainly does not rise to rank with Dylan Thomas When he wrote:
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Funny that neither Yeats nor Thomas knew of AIDS or what is was to be a middle aged gay man but their poems can speak to and about those groups with more power and truth then Holleran. Of course he is writing prose not poetry so he will always suffer by comparison when it comes to pithy summations but is not actually trapped in specifics that mean less and less as time goes by?
In an odd way 'The Beauty of Men' is almost as historical a document as 'Dancer From the Dance' but although pre-AIDS NY was not my city or my youth I would be more likely to read it again then 'The Beauty of Men'.
The problem is that everyone gets older, no longer being the hottest trick on the dance floor is universal, HIV/AIDS was horrific, but it was disease not the wrath of god or a metaphor. Most of Holleran's actions and problems had to do with getting older. Even without AIDS it is possible to imagine him fleeing NY for the dull anonymity of Florida and that boat ramp which is like an alternative to the boat dock in Great Gatsby with its blinking green light. It was a symbol of all Gatsby's aspirations, dreams, and ultimately, his disillusionment. The boat ramp Holleran passes and stops on his lonely journeys back and forth to see his mother in her nursing home is equally symbolic. Even if AIDS had never happened Holleran, a middle aged man without the commitments or ties of children, would probably have found himself in that Florida backwater. Although no one likes to talk, never mind read, about it, loneliness, being alone, is fast becoming the norm (30% and rising of UK households in 2024 were single person households).
I wonder will Holleran's novels about aging and grief survive their specifics to speak to those for whom those specifics are not memory or even distinct history but simply the amorphous past? I know that I will reread 'Dancer From the Dance' and 'Nights on Aruba' but not this one.
I've just checked my brief review for 'Kingdom of Sand' in which I called this novel 'hauntingly beautiful', I'd read but hadn't reviewed 'Grief', and although I would not withdraw my 'hauntingly beautiful' accolade I am not sure it is enough to recommend the book. From this novel through 'Grief' and finally 'Kingdom of Sand' Andrew Holleran has been telling us of his existential crisis of getting old, finding he was no longer able to attract the younger men he fancied, his depressing life in small town Florida and commitment to caring for his severely handicapped mother (of which more later). As a lament for what growing old means it lacks everything that W.B. Yeats said in 'When You Grow Old':
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
I can't help feeling that not only has Holleran failed to match the emotions of Yeats, never mind his brevity, and he certainly does not rise to rank with Dylan Thomas When he wrote:
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Funny that neither Yeats nor Thomas knew of AIDS or what is was to be a middle aged gay man but their poems can speak to and about those groups with more power and truth then Holleran. Of course he is writing prose not poetry so he will always suffer by comparison when it comes to pithy summations but is not actually trapped in specifics that mean less and less as time goes by?
In an odd way 'The Beauty of Men' is almost as historical a document as 'Dancer From the Dance' but although pre-AIDS NY was not my city or my youth I would be more likely to read it again then 'The Beauty of Men'.
The problem is that everyone gets older, no longer being the hottest trick on the dance floor is universal, HIV/AIDS was horrific, but it was disease not the wrath of god or a metaphor. Most of Holleran's actions and problems had to do with getting older. Even without AIDS it is possible to imagine him fleeing NY for the dull anonymity of Florida and that boat ramp which is like an alternative to the boat dock in Great Gatsby with its blinking green light. It was a symbol of all Gatsby's aspirations, dreams, and ultimately, his disillusionment. The boat ramp Holleran passes and stops on his lonely journeys back and forth to see his mother in her nursing home is equally symbolic. Even if AIDS had never happened Holleran, a middle aged man without the commitments or ties of children, would probably have found himself in that Florida backwater. Although no one likes to talk, never mind read, about it, loneliness, being alone, is fast becoming the norm (30% and rising of UK households in 2024 were single person households).
I wonder will Holleran's novels about aging and grief survive their specifics to speak to those for whom those specifics are not memory or even distinct history but simply the amorphous past? I know that I will reread 'Dancer From the Dance' and 'Nights on Aruba' but not this one.
November 8, 2024
“How decent and humane it looks in the daily obituaries, he thinks, when at the end of someone's little paragraph—the nine lines of type most lives are reduced to—the words died at home appear. Everyone wants to die at home—even men in prison— on the front porch, whether they have one or not, in a rocking chair, ditto, falling asleep while the grandchildren play in the yard and the smell of a fresh-baked apple pie set on the windowsill wafts from the kitchen, surrounded by family and friends. What family? What friends? Most of us die in hospitals connected to tubes, at three in the morning, without a nurse or a relative in sight.”
I have to stop reading books such as Hollerans when I’m going through difficult times. Wow. Just wow. Another piece of art I’m sure I’ll never forget.
Lark is too much like me. His situation too similar to mine.
The more I read about AIDS, the more I relate it to my current situation, in 2024, my mother dying of cancer in hospice as I read and try and pretend I don’t want to disappear. Except she’s not alone, and she won’t die alone. God, the world is so cruel. All of these men…
Sutcliffe was very similar to Sutherland and I love that. I wish I could know… they must be based on someone Andrew knew, or at least parts of them. I love them so much.
These endings… always leave me wanting more. Turning the blank pages at the end of the book and feeling my stomach twist because yes, this really is the end of the book and no, you’re not getting anymore. Now go and feel your emotions and stop putting them on Lark!
I have to stop reading books such as Hollerans when I’m going through difficult times. Wow. Just wow. Another piece of art I’m sure I’ll never forget.
Lark is too much like me. His situation too similar to mine.
The more I read about AIDS, the more I relate it to my current situation, in 2024, my mother dying of cancer in hospice as I read and try and pretend I don’t want to disappear. Except she’s not alone, and she won’t die alone. God, the world is so cruel. All of these men…
Sutcliffe was very similar to Sutherland and I love that. I wish I could know… they must be based on someone Andrew knew, or at least parts of them. I love them so much.
These endings… always leave me wanting more. Turning the blank pages at the end of the book and feeling my stomach twist because yes, this really is the end of the book and no, you’re not getting anymore. Now go and feel your emotions and stop putting them on Lark!
November 19, 2013
My feelings about this book are a little complicated. Very little happens - the narrator pines after a one-night stand while caring for his quadriplegic, elderly mother. Things don't come to a head until the book is almost over. Holleran is a real charmer with description, and I love how expansive and meditative he is. The main character is a self-admitted hypocrite when it comes to judging others for their age and beauty. He suffers a loneliness that we watch him inflict on those around him. The last four or five chapters, which follow a confrontation with the unrequited love, are the best in the book and stand among Holleran's best work. The book is purposefully meandering, though. I love Holleran's writing, but I did feel that the first two-thirds of the book were unnecessarily repetitive. It's tough - repetitive it's what this sort of story calls for. Anyway, this is a very powerful book about aging and loneliness. Holleran's Grief is this book's unofficial sequel. Though that book is more compact, I much prefer the expansiveness and intimacy of this one.
July 31, 2013
Although I find Holleran's writing to be beautiful especially when setting the scenes endlessly switching from flashback to flashback, I couldn't get into the content with enough conviction. Lark is our main character torn between leaving NYC for "twelve days" and now, twelve years later, Lark, 47 yrs old, is still here in Gainsville, Florida taking care of his quadriplegic mother and reminiscing on the earlier days of youth and beauty and men... He becomes a stalker, obsessing over a sexual encounter he once had 10 years prior in the mensroom near the local boat dock that he continues to prowl. And now his perspective on Life is jaded, lost, depressing, death.
Age and AIDS...grim
Age and AIDS...grim
April 30, 2008
Perhaps one of the most haunting books I've ever read, with sentences that still resonate for me. It's a depressing read, if you're a gay man of a certain age, but it is Holleran's langorous writing that lifts this book into an art form.
January 1, 2021
If Anita Brookner wrote about gay sex.
November 9, 2017
Dolor, depresión, soledad, silencio, obsesión... sentimientos y sensaciones oscuras pero brillantemente narradas y poéticamente descritas en esta novela de Holleran sobre el devastador paisaje que enfrenta Lark, un hombre gay mayor que ha visto su mundo derrumbarse, sus amigos morir de una indescriptible plaga, su belleza juvenil desaparecida; a quien solo le quedan el cuidado de la madre cuadraplégica en un hogar para ancianos, el ir y venir a lugares de cruising en los que se sabe en la desventaja de quien ya no es atractivo, las conversaciones escasas y tristes con los pocos sobrevivientes de su antigua vida, su paralizante obsesión por un encuentro fugaz de años atrás.
La queda reflexión de Lark sobre estos tópicos que marcan su devenir diario es culta y romántica, obsesiva y repetitiva como un moscardón sobrevolando alguna flor en una tarde calurosa y sin brisa; sin embargo, no carece de vuelo poético y en ciertos pasajes, de la universalidad sobre el temor a la muerte y el olvido, sobre la culpa y el secreto, sobre la ilusión de la vida que pudo ser.
La queda reflexión de Lark sobre estos tópicos que marcan su devenir diario es culta y romántica, obsesiva y repetitiva como un moscardón sobrevolando alguna flor en una tarde calurosa y sin brisa; sin embargo, no carece de vuelo poético y en ciertos pasajes, de la universalidad sobre el temor a la muerte y el olvido, sobre la culpa y el secreto, sobre la ilusión de la vida que pudo ser.
September 24, 2020
I first read this book right after it came out in the mid 90's. I was in my twenties then and just recently discovered Andrew Holleran. Clinging to every word he'd written, I devoured his latest book about an aging gay man who is caring for his paraplegic mother while also obsessing over a man he picked up at the boat docks one night. I couldn't relate to it. It was just a slice of gay life I had yet to experience myself. I was happy to be reading a new book from an author I loved.
Now in my 40s, I reread it and came away with a whole new relatable experience. I've experienced the loneliness and obsession of the main character, Lark. The scenes of him visiting his mother in the senior center were also relatable, as my dad spent the last three years of his life in one as well. I've lost friends to AIDS. I've reminisced over the way things were "back then." I've mourned my youth and a parent. I've felt invisible and unattractive.
The book holds up. It's a classic in gay literature that I'm sure I'll read again in another twenty years. True to life, there isn't much hope in the end, but we don't always need hope to enjoy a book. Sometimes a book should just give us a hard slap in the face and remind us of the better times we've forgotten or wasted.
Now in my 40s, I reread it and came away with a whole new relatable experience. I've experienced the loneliness and obsession of the main character, Lark. The scenes of him visiting his mother in the senior center were also relatable, as my dad spent the last three years of his life in one as well. I've lost friends to AIDS. I've reminisced over the way things were "back then." I've mourned my youth and a parent. I've felt invisible and unattractive.
The book holds up. It's a classic in gay literature that I'm sure I'll read again in another twenty years. True to life, there isn't much hope in the end, but we don't always need hope to enjoy a book. Sometimes a book should just give us a hard slap in the face and remind us of the better times we've forgotten or wasted.
December 24, 2019
Andrew Holleran strikes again with yet another story that strikes at the heart of gay life in his book being gay and aging, "The Beauty of Men."
Following the late-in-life story of Lark, a man reeling from the deaths of all his friends by AIDS the decade prior and living alone in North Florida to care for his dying mother, "The Beauty of Men" is a tale of the loneliness that seems to accompany gay life in the 90s, when all hope, friendship, and companionship has died and left you behind. Unafraid to confront the issues of aging, changing bodies, and the challenges of being older in a gay community obsessed with youth, Lark embodies the loneliness we as gay men so greatly fear as we age.
Sometimes overdrawn with too much nostalgia and a bit much "bitter old queen" talk, much of this book still remains essential: a reminder to care for our elders and that loneliness happens in our community but is something we should, young and old, fight together against.
Following the late-in-life story of Lark, a man reeling from the deaths of all his friends by AIDS the decade prior and living alone in North Florida to care for his dying mother, "The Beauty of Men" is a tale of the loneliness that seems to accompany gay life in the 90s, when all hope, friendship, and companionship has died and left you behind. Unafraid to confront the issues of aging, changing bodies, and the challenges of being older in a gay community obsessed with youth, Lark embodies the loneliness we as gay men so greatly fear as we age.
Sometimes overdrawn with too much nostalgia and a bit much "bitter old queen" talk, much of this book still remains essential: a reminder to care for our elders and that loneliness happens in our community but is something we should, young and old, fight together against.
April 3, 2016
Very eloquent description of life of a gay man in the mid-1980's. Lark has moved to Florida to care for his mother for the past twelve years after she fell and broke her neck. Over the same time period he has watched several of his New York friends die from AIDS. He has a sexual encounter with Becker, a man a little over a decade younger, and becomes almost obsessed with the man. While dealing with his mother's care and his loss of friends, he also tries to deal with growing older in the gay community. Mildly dated but overall still very relevant and the relationship with his mother is very touching. A good solid novel.
March 11, 2021
Last year I said I wouldn't torture myself by reading classic gay literature set in an around the aftermath of the AIDS crisis in the USA. And yet here I am again. It's quite interesting that the writing itself is mostly emotionless. and that's pretty much how I felt after finishing. Half the time I wanted to give Lark a big hug and the other half of the time I wanted to shake him and say "wake up to yourself".
January 30, 2015
I am glad this book exists, because it captures the impact of a horrible disease on a particular group of people at a specific moment in time. But man I did not love reading this book. The narrator is so sad, so defeated, in ways that elicit frustration more than sympathy.
February 21, 2021
Anything Holleran writes is pretty much sacred to me. An achingly beautiful novel with prose that practically sings.
October 17, 2024
Oof I had to PUSH through to get to the end of this book.
I found it to be incredibly self-pitying, despite many reviews claiming it’s quite the opposite. I think I’m not really the target demographic for this novel.
I found the exploration of survivors guilt intersected with desire to be really interesting, especially in the time of AIDS. Despite some lyrical writing, I felt much of the tone to be one note. Often times I felt this book was just misery porn. I mean Lark is an aging queer man who has lost friends to AIDS, fallen for a man he met a cruising spot who doesn’t love him back, and his mother is a quadriplegic.
If you’re a queer person who’s concerned about what your middle aged future could look like…maybe don’t read this. Perhaps in 30 years I’ll think this is gospel but right now it’s just a drag.
I found it to be incredibly self-pitying, despite many reviews claiming it’s quite the opposite. I think I’m not really the target demographic for this novel.
I found the exploration of survivors guilt intersected with desire to be really interesting, especially in the time of AIDS. Despite some lyrical writing, I felt much of the tone to be one note. Often times I felt this book was just misery porn. I mean Lark is an aging queer man who has lost friends to AIDS, fallen for a man he met a cruising spot who doesn’t love him back, and his mother is a quadriplegic.
If you’re a queer person who’s concerned about what your middle aged future could look like…maybe don’t read this. Perhaps in 30 years I’ll think this is gospel but right now it’s just a drag.
July 10, 2017
Not necessarily universal, but an exploration of what can happen to Gay men who are aging and alone. It is colored somewhat by the effects of the AIDS epidemic on survivors in the 90's. Still for those who still have time, it is a warning to prepare yourself for your elder years.
The comparison of Lark's and his mother's situation is apt.
9 of 10 stars
The comparison of Lark's and his mother's situation is apt.
9 of 10 stars
March 25, 2024
Essentially the anti-LESS by Andrew Sean Greer in its pursuit of exploring themes of aging, isolation, longing, obsession, and grief in an older, gay protagonist. Much darker & bleaker with some stunning reflections on humanity. Ultimately, I didn’t love it as much as DANCER FROM THE DANCE, but I look forward to picking up Holleran’s other books!
December 3, 2024
Men are certainly beautiful. My main qualm with this book is it felt so long-winded. The author spent so much time cramming in metaphors and flashbacks and allegories that I found myself drifting off quite a few times. If the majority of the fluff was removed I would definitely give this book a higher rating.
Read
September 21, 2024DNF 49%
November 11, 2024
Took me forever to read. Never really got into it. Though an interesting look into the relationship between gay men and age.
January 28, 2025
Good, but sad. And nothing major really happened. I guess that’s the point though. Also I don’t know if I like books based in Florida. Sorry Florida.
February 14, 2024
3.4 | tint your windows, ladies.
October 19, 2019
What a miserable book. Extremely reptitive with no pathos, catharsis or movement of plot. At 270+ pages it’s too long and the titular character is rather unlikable with little redeeming qualities (even molesting an unconscious man). A painful read even if enlightening on the ramifications of the AIDS crisis.
November 25, 2012
In his third novel Andrew Holleran explores the subjects of aging and loss. The protagonist is Lark, a middle aged gay man who is faced with the cold truth of lost youth. Lark's life is filled with aimless midnight cruising and lonely moments of despair in his empty apartment. He has lost his professional drive a long time ago and most of his closest friends have fallen victim to the AIDS epidemic. Lark's whole existence is completely saturated with the dull despair of someone who grieves after lost opportunities and the beauty he sees around him and is now unable to reach.
"The Beauty of Men" is a lament, but one that doesn't feel over the top or too self conscious. It's an honest and beautiful character study filled with keen observations about a modern life as it is gradually nearing its latter half. Holleran's language is lucid, yet lyrical and melancholic.
It's extremely disturbing how obsessively Lark grieves because he cannot satisfy the sexual longing he feels towards men he is now invisible to. Even more disturbing is how desperately he longs after the feeling of desire itself. I thought the numbing of primal urges is the main good thing about growing old and supposedly wise. Well, however it actually goes, Holleran's writing is alarmingly plausible.
In the middle of all the bitterness about unattained beauty and longing, aging and eventual death are most effectively present in scenes that takes place in a nursing home Lark visits daily to take care of his paralyzed mother. The interaction between mother and son is powerful in its hopelessness and sad beauty. And the atmosphere of a place where life is quietly dimming is strongly presented and I think crystallizes the essence of this magnificent piece of modern literature.
"The Beauty of Men" is a lament, but one that doesn't feel over the top or too self conscious. It's an honest and beautiful character study filled with keen observations about a modern life as it is gradually nearing its latter half. Holleran's language is lucid, yet lyrical and melancholic.
It's extremely disturbing how obsessively Lark grieves because he cannot satisfy the sexual longing he feels towards men he is now invisible to. Even more disturbing is how desperately he longs after the feeling of desire itself. I thought the numbing of primal urges is the main good thing about growing old and supposedly wise. Well, however it actually goes, Holleran's writing is alarmingly plausible.
In the middle of all the bitterness about unattained beauty and longing, aging and eventual death are most effectively present in scenes that takes place in a nursing home Lark visits daily to take care of his paralyzed mother. The interaction between mother and son is powerful in its hopelessness and sad beauty. And the atmosphere of a place where life is quietly dimming is strongly presented and I think crystallizes the essence of this magnificent piece of modern literature.
April 26, 2012
"The Beauty of Men” is a poignant story of loss and loneliness told from the perspective of Lark, 47 years old, residing in Florida to take care of his invalid mother. Lark was young in the heyday of the 70’s when beautiful men enjoyed a carefree hedonism yet unaffected by the AIDS epidemic. It is a sad story filled with pathos and angst, as Lark recounts his friends from his glory days (all of whom have died), while he is aging alone without love, yet continually seeking it in the places he feels reduced to haunting for brief encounters – a secluded boat ramp as an example. There is a sense of melancholy pervasive from beginning to end in this story, but Holleran writes so elegantly, capturing the character’s sense of diminishment so precisely, you appreciate the writer rather than the mood evoked. Lark is a healthy middle-aged man. He is experiencing the natural aging process yet cannot seem to reconcile himself to it. Instead of acceptance and appreciation (he’s alive, he made it through the plague - his friend’s did not), he mourns the loss of youth and beauty - searching it out like the Holy Grail - an acolyte at the altar of younger men rather than the priest. As I read the story of Lark, I kept remembering Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29, “When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state…And look upon myself and curse my fate.” “The Beauty of Men” is eloquent and poetic although I found it somewhat heartbreaking at times. It is not necessarily a “must” read, but it certainly a worthwhile one.
February 1, 2015
The novel is a bleak but beautiful rendering of a forty-seven year-old man who has buried most of his friends having died from AIDS. He also takes care of his mother (for twelve years) until she dies.
Answer to the question why gay men are promiscuous is so great:
Holleran's allusion to The Great Gatsby is a bit heavy-handed and unnecessary:
The greatest last sentence of perhaps any American novel in the twentieth century should not be trifled with, should not be used to carry a heavy load the author didn't wish to lift in that particular sentence.
Answer to the question why gay men are promiscuous is so great:
“‘Because,’ he said—thinking, Because sex is wonderful, and who wouldn’t want to do it as much as possible? Because sex is ecstasy, and there’s no ecstasy left in this civilization anymore. Because we thought penicillin could cure everything. Because people are looking for Love. Because in this society we can’t find support for stable partnerships. Because we’re ashamed, and seek out sex with a stranger we don’t have to say hello to in the street the next day, much less mention at our funerals. Because, because, because, he thought, and then he turned to her and said. ‘Why do you smoke?’” (196).
Holleran's allusion to The Great Gatsby is a bit heavy-handed and unnecessary:
"But still we go on, he thinks with a sigh as he crosses him legs, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the police station and doctor's office" (73).
The greatest last sentence of perhaps any American novel in the twentieth century should not be trifled with, should not be used to carry a heavy load the author didn't wish to lift in that particular sentence.
March 6, 2015
I love how many truths there are in this book related to aging, sexuality and being alone. There's an unforgettable line in it - "When you need a mother, anyone's mother will do." A good friend of mine is a gay man serving a long prison sentence, and he has lamented about aging and living a life devoid of healthy romantic fulfillment. I gave him a copy of this book and it was great conversation fodder. This is a powerful, honest book.
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