Collected Stories

by David Leavitt

From the celebrated author of The Lost Language of Cranes and While England Sleeps , an important literary the complete collected short fiction.

This handsome edition gathers together stories from Family Dancing (a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN/Faulkner Prize), A Place I've Never Been , and The Marble Quilt , which has never before appeared in paperback. Critics have hailed these stories as "witty and elegant," "luminous, touching, and splendid."

The publication of this collection affirms David Leavitt's mastery of the form, and reminds us why The New York Times has called him "one of his generation's most gifted writers."

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Gay Fiction, Literature

656 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Leavitt is a graduate of Yale University and a professor at the University of Florida, where he is the co-director of the creative writing program. He is also the editor of Subtropics magazine, The University of Florida's literary review.

Leavitt, who is openly gay, has frequently explored gay issues in his work. He divides his time between Florida and Tuscany, Italy.

Reviews

[Kelsey Landhuis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful, perfect book and even though it is the first thing I have read by David Leavitt, since it contains three collections' worth of stories (Family Dancing, A Place I've Never Been, and The Marble Quilt) and I devoured the whole thing in two weeks I have no hesitation in naming him my new favorite short story writer.

There are a few common themes that crop up frequently throughout the stories, namely sickness/death/dying and complicated/difficult family relationships. Of course most of the stories are most obviously about love and romantic/sexual relationships, usually between gay men, but these relationships never exist in a vacuum. They are always complicated by external circumstances; Leavitt does a fantastic job of painting melancholy but realistic pictures of messy human lives. His prose is the simple, straightforward kind that just knocks you out with truth and leaves you breathless.

Editorial-wise, my one nitpick is that I wish there would have been some indication of where each set of stories ended and the next one began; the first story in A Place I've Never Been is basically a retelling/continuation of the last one in Family Dancing, which I thought was a little strange until I checked the title page and realized that they were originally from different books. The style and content of those first two sets are very similar so they flow well together; The Marble Quilt was not necessarily an unwelcome change but it was a pretty abrupt one that I think could have probably been smoothed over simply by the addition of an extra title page.

But really beautiful, mostly flawless work; not a single story struck me as extraneous fluff or padding, and I definitely wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book to anyone.

[L · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh david leavitt!

[Maureen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first book I bought in San Francisco, this didn't disappoint. It lit a fire under my butt and made me write more than I had before.