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Mountain Climbing in Sheridan Square
A series of discrete episodes among friends provide snapshots of one gay man's life. There are parties, concerts, dinners with everyday life – and death – interwoven in the rich story-telling. An actress, a painter, a set designer, a writer – all sweating and surviving in Manhattan, all scoring their first successes. Part autobiography and part documentary, artfully written, it details the lives of these creative people. Young and professional, they know there is more to life than money. There is trust and the sort of love that trades in deeds of kindness.
- GenresLGBT
180 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1988
About the author
Stan Leventhal
37 books2 followersStan Leventhal was an American writer and magazine editor. Primarily known as the editor in chief of Heat Publications, a publisher of gay erotic magazines including Mandate, Torso, and Inches, he also wrote and published several works of LGBT literature in the 1980s and 1990s. He published three novels and two short story collections during his lifetime; two additional novels were published following his death of AIDS in 1995.
In addition he founded Amethyst Press, a now-defunct publishing company which specialized in LGBT books, including his own books and titles by Dennis Cooper, Bo Huston, Steve Abbott, Kevin Killian, Patrick Moore and Mark Ameen.
He garnered three Lambda Literary Award nominations, in 1989 for Mountain Climbing in Sheridan Square, in 1990 for Fault Lines, and in 1991 for Black Marble Pool.
In addition he founded Amethyst Press, a now-defunct publishing company which specialized in LGBT books, including his own books and titles by Dennis Cooper, Bo Huston, Steve Abbott, Kevin Killian, Patrick Moore and Mark Ameen.
He garnered three Lambda Literary Award nominations, in 1989 for Mountain Climbing in Sheridan Square, in 1990 for Fault Lines, and in 1991 for Black Marble Pool.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 28, 2020
Stan Leventhal is yet another gay writer we lost too early to the AIDS crisis and "Mountain Climbing in Sheridan Square" is a time capsule from an era just before and during the crisis that ravaged the gay community.
Each chapter weaves together various bits of stories from the narrator's life so that the book acts as a collection of short stories that all reveal a cast of characters bonded by their queerness and bohemian approach to life. From broken hearts caused by drug addiction to broken hearts caused by the AIDS crisis, the characters that inhabit the old Gay West Village build on their tragedies much as mountain climbers build on their past climbing successes, and in the end they find peace in their relationships with one another as AID ravages the world outside their windows in Sheridan Square.
A gay classic that was forgotten but now reprinted, "Mountain Climbing in Sheridan Square" is a reminder of the beauty of being queer and bucking the rules.
Each chapter weaves together various bits of stories from the narrator's life so that the book acts as a collection of short stories that all reveal a cast of characters bonded by their queerness and bohemian approach to life. From broken hearts caused by drug addiction to broken hearts caused by the AIDS crisis, the characters that inhabit the old Gay West Village build on their tragedies much as mountain climbers build on their past climbing successes, and in the end they find peace in their relationships with one another as AID ravages the world outside their windows in Sheridan Square.
A gay classic that was forgotten but now reprinted, "Mountain Climbing in Sheridan Square" is a reminder of the beauty of being queer and bucking the rules.
July 29, 2020
So happy ReQueered Tales republished Stan Leventhal's 1988 novel, Mountain Climbing in Sheridan Square. Leventhal's writing is a sweet combination of cozy novel and beautiful literature. For me, it was the perfect kind of COVID summer read. Easy to read, sophisticated enough to remind me how good writing can be, and compelling enough to invite me to read night after night until I finished. He went on to publish 5 novels and 2 short story collections before dying of AIDS at age 44. Mountain Climbing in Sheridan Square captures the late 80's NYC perfectly. Looking forward to reading his other novels.
May 25, 2020
Poignant vignettes of urban gay life in Greenwich Village during the late 1970s and 1980s. The work is clearly autobiographical and unfortunately the author died of AIDS in 1995. This book made laugh, cry and get nostalgic for a long lost life and time period. I plan to read all the other books by this author.
May 12, 2020
Stan Leventhal instantly transported me back to 1980s Manhattan. I was there too. His brilliantly captured story was like dipping madeleine into a teacup. As Christoper Bram notes: "Stan was wonderful company: warm, honest, curious, engaging and human. It is the next best thing to hanging out with him." I agree wholeheartedly and am going to look at others books he wrote at the time, notably Skydiving on Christopher Street (1995). Regrettably he succumbed to the plague but that is certainly not a reason not to read him. I liked how he sounded in this novel and want to hear more.
June 25, 2020
NOTE: This book was provided by the editor for the purpose of a review on Rainbow Book Reviews.
It’s funny that today’s bloggers are probably unaware that their writing technique—the short, easily and quickly readable snippet focusing on a particular topic—is not new at all. I immediately think of Nobel Prize winner Camilo José Cela’s ‘The Hive’, published in 1950, which I’ve always wanted to read (I tried, but alas, in Spanish—a doomed project if you compare Cela’s rich Spanish with my own rudimentary and rusty command of the language). Stan Leventhal’s novel is another example of how to use the “blog post”-writing technique in a highly skillful and enjoyable way—years before the first blog was created. Leventhal was kind enough to write in English, too, for which I’m immensely thankful.
Examined objectively and outwardly, one could think the book to be a mess, a hopeless jumble of apparently unrelated bits and pieces, a book where the structure defies chronology and logic. As a result, this should be an unreadable book. But it isn’t. In fact, there’s someone who holds the whole thing together and imbues it with a logic of its own. This someone is… the author, incidentally also the main character of the book, or so I surmise. No name is mentioned, the book is told from a first-person-perspective. But so compelling is the narrator’s (and thus the author’s) voice, so intriguing his story, so well-balanced his pace, so crystal-clear and pleasant his writing that I didn’t notice the breaks and jumps from one subplot to the next. It all fit together seamlessly to create a panorama of a place, a time, a mindset.
The place is New York, the time the early eighties, the mindset that of young artists struggling to find their path to success, to happiness, to love. The narrator is a twentyish singer slash songwriter who works odd jobs to earn a living (in a factory, in a theatre ticket booth, in a record store, as a music editor, then as a writer). He’s living in a small flat in Sheridan Square, observing from his window what’s going on downstairs, musing on the people he sees, on relationships, on friends, on music, on AIDS, on art and artists, with the recurrent theme of what aliens would make of us humans (very funny). With wry humor, he retraces major moments of his friends’ lives as well as some of their conversations. Woven into this web of small pieces are snippets of his own long-time relationships. First there is Amos, compulsory lier and cheater, whom he meets in New Orleans and soon invites to New York to live with him. He’s very much in love with the guy, or rather, it seemed to me, in love with the idea of being in love with him (weren’t we all at that age?). He finally realizes there’s no future for the two of them and throws him out. He then meets Mike, a sweet and shy man, with whom he finally finds the love he’s been looking for all this time.
I really loved this novel. The short chapters, each coming with a new topic, were easy to read, the larger narrative easy to follow, too, despite jumping from aliens to a conversation with someone to Amos to Mike to the narrator’s dealer, a larger-than-life black drag queen cum esoteric teacher, to something else altogether. If a bad writer had attempted to tackle a book like this, I would have been confused after a few chapters, but Leventhal pulls it off effortlessly. The narrator he (re)presents is an endearing, nice, curious young man with sane views on life, love, and the rest, if I may say so. He tries to see everything with an open mind, never taking himself too seriously, pursuing his career without being obsessed with getting rich. He seems to be a sweet, unprejudiced guy, always ready to question himself, always keen on understanding others. A person I really would have loved to meet—I’m sure we could have discussed anything and nothing for hours.
Of course, the snippet-technique made me read on and on without once looking up. I had just learned a new twist in Amos’s story, say, and of course wanted to know where it all would lead to. Very cleverly made, very addictive, in fact. I giggled, I was sad, I was made to think, I was enlightened. When I closed the book, I was just slightly disappointed that it wasn’t any longer. Which means I highly recommend this novel—a good example of how books can be literary, intelligent, and entertaining.
It’s funny that today’s bloggers are probably unaware that their writing technique—the short, easily and quickly readable snippet focusing on a particular topic—is not new at all. I immediately think of Nobel Prize winner Camilo José Cela’s ‘The Hive’, published in 1950, which I’ve always wanted to read (I tried, but alas, in Spanish—a doomed project if you compare Cela’s rich Spanish with my own rudimentary and rusty command of the language). Stan Leventhal’s novel is another example of how to use the “blog post”-writing technique in a highly skillful and enjoyable way—years before the first blog was created. Leventhal was kind enough to write in English, too, for which I’m immensely thankful.
Examined objectively and outwardly, one could think the book to be a mess, a hopeless jumble of apparently unrelated bits and pieces, a book where the structure defies chronology and logic. As a result, this should be an unreadable book. But it isn’t. In fact, there’s someone who holds the whole thing together and imbues it with a logic of its own. This someone is… the author, incidentally also the main character of the book, or so I surmise. No name is mentioned, the book is told from a first-person-perspective. But so compelling is the narrator’s (and thus the author’s) voice, so intriguing his story, so well-balanced his pace, so crystal-clear and pleasant his writing that I didn’t notice the breaks and jumps from one subplot to the next. It all fit together seamlessly to create a panorama of a place, a time, a mindset.
The place is New York, the time the early eighties, the mindset that of young artists struggling to find their path to success, to happiness, to love. The narrator is a twentyish singer slash songwriter who works odd jobs to earn a living (in a factory, in a theatre ticket booth, in a record store, as a music editor, then as a writer). He’s living in a small flat in Sheridan Square, observing from his window what’s going on downstairs, musing on the people he sees, on relationships, on friends, on music, on AIDS, on art and artists, with the recurrent theme of what aliens would make of us humans (very funny). With wry humor, he retraces major moments of his friends’ lives as well as some of their conversations. Woven into this web of small pieces are snippets of his own long-time relationships. First there is Amos, compulsory lier and cheater, whom he meets in New Orleans and soon invites to New York to live with him. He’s very much in love with the guy, or rather, it seemed to me, in love with the idea of being in love with him (weren’t we all at that age?). He finally realizes there’s no future for the two of them and throws him out. He then meets Mike, a sweet and shy man, with whom he finally finds the love he’s been looking for all this time.
I really loved this novel. The short chapters, each coming with a new topic, were easy to read, the larger narrative easy to follow, too, despite jumping from aliens to a conversation with someone to Amos to Mike to the narrator’s dealer, a larger-than-life black drag queen cum esoteric teacher, to something else altogether. If a bad writer had attempted to tackle a book like this, I would have been confused after a few chapters, but Leventhal pulls it off effortlessly. The narrator he (re)presents is an endearing, nice, curious young man with sane views on life, love, and the rest, if I may say so. He tries to see everything with an open mind, never taking himself too seriously, pursuing his career without being obsessed with getting rich. He seems to be a sweet, unprejudiced guy, always ready to question himself, always keen on understanding others. A person I really would have loved to meet—I’m sure we could have discussed anything and nothing for hours.
Of course, the snippet-technique made me read on and on without once looking up. I had just learned a new twist in Amos’s story, say, and of course wanted to know where it all would lead to. Very cleverly made, very addictive, in fact. I giggled, I was sad, I was made to think, I was enlightened. When I closed the book, I was just slightly disappointed that it wasn’t any longer. Which means I highly recommend this novel—a good example of how books can be literary, intelligent, and entertaining.
March 8, 2022
A "snapshot in time" story following the everyday life of a gay writer and musician living in Greenwich Village in the early days of AIDS. Despite the twin specters of the pandemic and widespread drug use, the book is optimistic in tone with its theme of hard work and success in creative endeavors. In hindsight, this makes Leventhal's untimely death of the virus in 1995 all the more tragic. No, he wasn't the greatest writer, as his friend Sarah Schulman fondly observes in
The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination
(where I first discovered him and other prematurely deceased queer authors), but he clearly had big dreams and ambitions. Read this together with his mystery novel
The Black Marble Pool
for an authentic window into gay culture in the 1980s.
May 14, 2026
This is one of those classic gay novels from a time and era long-ago that's lost to the AIDS epidemic, where everything about it from the voice, the writing, the characters, and story is just steeped in queer history. It may not have a lot going on plot-wise, but it was still such a riveting read with an energy that just shines.
March 5, 2020
Man, I really loved this book back in the '80s. I wonder if I still have it, I'd love to give it another read!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews