Martin and John

by Dale Peck

Dale Peck’s debut is a tour de force in which Martin and John find each other again and in a trailer park, a high-end jewelry store, a Kansas barn, and later, in New York City, living under the shadow of the AIDS epidemic. Though their names remain the same, their identities are constantly shifting, creating a fractured view of loss and desire in the early years of the AIDS crisis. Vaulting through self and history, Martin and John is one of the most remarkable novels to emerge from an America ravaged by disease, and one of the finest and most complex love stories of the ’90s. Martin and John is the first volume of Gospel Harmonies, a series of seven stand-alone books which follow the character of John as he attempts to navigate the uneasy relationship between the self and the postmodern world.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Gay, Queer, Gay Fiction, Romance, Contemporary

Audio CD

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Dale Peck (born 1967 on Long Island, New York) is an American novelist, critic, and columnist. His 2009 novel, Sprout, won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Children's/Young Adult literature, and was a finalist for the Stonewall Book Award in the Children's and Young Adult Literature category.

Reviews

[Raul · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strangely structured book, with stories set in a kind of episodic form. The two main characters in this book are Martin and John and both different people in each episode. An intriguing book but it's easy to be lost and confused as each new episode, which shares nothing with the one preceding it except the main characters, begins. It took some time to get used to the flow of the book but once one appreciates the stories within the story individually and as part of the book interconnected by the protagonists, then the tale becomes quite interesting in its multiplicity. There is a lot of abuse against children described here, a warning for those affected by such depictions. All stories have the children with strained and/or damaged relationships with their parents and guardians.

There is a particular part that involved such wonderfully described intimacy between the two characters that I loved. The gestures, the tenderness, it was so brilliant. I liked this book.

[☕Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very difficult book for me to review. My impressions were all over the place as I was reading it. I can't say I quite "enjoyed" it but I can certainly say I appreciated it. The prevailing tone of this book is quite somber and sordid, though there are some glimpses of beauty, and the sex is often a bit graphic for my admittedly middle-aged taste. The writing, however, is stellar from start to finish. I was having trouble grasping how all of the stories fit together, but in the final chapter it all gelled and made sense and was really very brilliant. On its literary merits this book probably deserves 5 stars, but I am settling on 4 stars as the most accurate reflection of my personal reading experience.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel amazed me when I read it in 1995. My response was visceral. When I read it again last week, I appreciated the innovative structure more than I did the first time, better understanding how the repetition of the names emphasizes the characters' disconnection. It's not a gimmick to force a thread through a collection of stories. Martins and Johns fuck and bleed and shit themselves; they do what they can, but some things are beyond their control. I want to tell this Martin and John what happens to that Martin and John, so they can learn from one another and know they're not the only ones.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

A deeply absorbing, moving, complicated, problematic, novel?, collection of short stories?, which at every reading both moved and frustrated me. So much about it is opaque, I only recently discovered that although in the UK it was originally published under the title 'Fucking Martin' in the USA it was always known under the title 'Martin and John' the one which is now canonical. What I don't know is if the UK title was the one Mr. Peck preferred when it was published for the first time in 1993 but wasn't acceptable by his US publisher or was it the idea of the marketing department of his UK publisher?

When it was published it came garnered with praise from Dennis Cooper:

"A wounding, extraordinarily honest story with a promiscuous narrative energt and honed stylistic gift that can only mark the arrival of a prodigious talent"

and Edmund Wilson:

"These are elegant, nightmarish variations on two compressed, mordant themes: love in the time of AIDS and the eternally fragile politics of domestic desire. There are so many qualities here - a sombre lyricism, a fresh conception of form, a profoundly human grasp of character that suggests this touchingly young writer will have a great future."

One reviewer in the UK wrote at the time of its first publication:

"...the narrative is not so simple. Almost all these lovers are called Martin, for starters. Their individuality is blurred by the many parallels with which Peck laces his stories, and by the way he exploits the ambiguity of the pronoun 'he', which compounds fathers and lovers - as did the sexual abuse of John's childhood. The text's confusion of Martins echoes John's confounding of lovers as he obsessively seeks a substitute for the one Martin he loved and lost.

"Even the assumption that John is himself the same from one story to the next is thrown into doubt. Yet Peck tantalises us with coincidences that suggest a single character. How many Johns can there be with maimed right hands? The uncertainties of identity are disorientating and intriguing. Odd details recur like fetishes (a scarred face, a wheezing air conditioner), and this steady repetition brilliantly shows how apparent trivialities accrue a weight of associations and form a past we cannot shake off.

"Set in different socio-economic strata and locations, the tales also present a panorama of American gay men: Johns and Martins everywhere, sharing common experiences but with endlessly varied family histories and formative sexual encounters. The stories, beyond that, stand as John's cathartic reinventions of his life: they are alternative self-images." (see the full review at: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...).

What the above is hinting at and many GR reviewers address directly is the baffling, almost obfuscatory, narrative, or lack of narrative in the novel. I had the advantage of the original UK novel synopsis:

"...John, the novel's narrator, flees his abusive father to become a hustler on the streets of New York. It is 1982, and at the age of nineteen John falls in love with Martin, who soon becomes ill with AIDS. They move to Kansas, and John, in order to cope with this new life, obsessively orders his own existence. He keeps a journal and then begins to write stories. Each of John's stories feature a couple called Martin and John, always different, and these stories illuminate the narrative, giving us new perspectives, opening up new variations on the truth..."

I must admit that this is both helpful and inaccurate, or maybe simply trying too hard to create a narrative cohesion. In the end I can only say I loved it despite my inability to find a surre narrative thread. To quote another review:

"...Dale Peck wrote an amazing, wailing, gutsluicing eulogy of a novel to someone or some number of people he’d known. Presumably. And it is elegaic and it is beautiful and it is also just a bit fucked up by his obsession with his own cleverness. Fucking Martin is a creature of its time, a sort of museum exhibit. It’s worth revisiting, but I’m not sure how well it will continue to age." From: https://wellreadweare.wordpress.com/2....

I think it has many strengths that will guarantee it will, or should, be read for a long time. I often complain about so much of the 'AIDS' fiction produced in the 1990s and have condemned much of it to literary history's dustbin - but 'Fucking Martin' or 'Martin and John' is a book in which AIDS inescapable is not about AIDS. It is like great literature on war in which battle and its horrific consequences are always there, but are not the point. It is the difference between Ernst Junger and Erich Maria Remarque.

This is a novel that I admire and love both in spite of and because of its complexity and difficulties. I don't normally go for the persistently obscure but here I found a voice that spoke true and in literature that is what counts most.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edmund White summarizes this quasi-novel best in his first-edition dustjacket blurb: "These are elegant, nightmarish variations on two compressed, mordant themes: love in the time of AIDS and the eternally fragile politics of domestic desire." I quote White here because with this novel, twenty-five year old Dale Peck proved he is White's equal in the first rank of gay writers.

A characteristic of both writers is their complexity, indeed difficulty, but this does nit distract from the reading. In "Martin and John," Peck presents a series of stories using the same character names, but not the same characters, each illuminating the main narration which is told in italics. I at first struggled to connect these stories and failed, then I realized their linkage is not in plot, but in variation. Each separately tells of "homophobia, violence, incest, and the anguish of dying an early death" and rising above all that, gay desire. Considered in total, the effect is overwhelming. "Martin and John" will be added to my short list of books to re-read.

Dale Peck went on to build quite a different reputation than this novel portended as a literary critic. Still, I'm curious how his talent evolved in his subsequent novels.

[Matthew Gallaway · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are many startling and amazing qualities to this book; it's structurally complicated and engaging without being 'difficult,' the language is lyrical even when Peck describes acts of horrible violence and suffering, and it's a book that will haunt you for a long time after you've finished. It's hard to believe (at least for me, particularly when I think of myself at the same age) that a novel of such insight and illumination into death and love (and sex) could have been written by a 25-year old; Peck was clearly wise beyond his years.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll admit, this was quite a confusing story, until I started looking at other people's reviews when I was about halfway through and realized this is two stories each about a gay couple named Martin and John. I am in love with the last chapter, Dale Peck knows how to catch emotions and release on paper such a strong love the two Martins and Johns share.
For me, this will be one of those books I will have to read again to catch the true brilliant pieces I know I missed the first time.

[Misha · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Sometimes you have to start over. The stories you make up for yourself don't seem to have any relevance to the life you lead; the horrors you imagined pale beside the ones you experience, and in your mind there's a battle as it tries to find something to grab on to, whether it's a memory of something that happened or a memory of something you imagined, a story you told yourself."

"If I have nothing else right now, I have control, and I don't want to risk losing that by doing something, meeting a man, making a friend, getting a job. I know I'll have to do something eventually, but right now there's just the bedroom, and that's enough for me... One morning I'll wake up and I won't do something I always do, and then I'll know it's time to make the change..."

God, this was brutal! Like some viscerally powerful books I have read in the past (Cleanness by Garth Greenwell, Just Above my Head or Another Country by James Baldwin, Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante, Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor, to name a few), it will take me some time to 'recover' from Martin and John. 

I will be honest. I don't think I have completely grasped this book. I don't know whether I am meant to. The premise (if there is one!) is this. John loses his partner, Martin, to AIDS, and to make sense of his grief, he writes several disconnected stories where he meets and loses Martin again and again. Perhaps it's a way of making sense of his rage, the ruthlessness of a wasted life. 

This book is told in fragmented episodes, short stories which may seem disconnected to the previous chapter, the only link being the recurring characters of Martin and John, and even then, they are different versions of Martin and John every time. This could have very well failed as a technique, but somehow it adds up to the big picture... dealing with grief by framing and reframing the past, the fact that happiness is so very fleeting. The book is often confusing, and one struggles to contextualize it at times, but I think the structural complications work to build the story. I have such clear memories of emotions evoked by certain sentences or episodes, no matter how unstructured.

I am amazed to learn that Dale Peck was 25 when this was published in 1993. There is so much insight and maturity to his sentences, to the sensations he evokes, all universal and haunting. Yes, there's suffering in this book, understandably, and it often deals with very difficult topics, but not once does it seem exploitative. There is desolation but hope too.

I will not say I recommend this because it's an emotionally difficult read and it often pushed my own limits. Personally speaking though, I feel this is a book I will one day re-read just to unravel it a bit more.

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Literarianism

[Timothy Juhl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peck's first novel, published when he was 25, was startling in both concept and content. Written during the worst days of the AIDS crisis, Peck's anger and sense of loss fuse into a series of short stories, each one featuring characters named Martin and John, and the effect is pure genius and I'm surprised it has never been attempted by other writers. There are moments so unnerving in this book, I am still haunted by their images to this day.

[Dennis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gay porn and trauma at its best! Like most short story collections, this was mixed; the link of the name Martin in each story was a cute gimmick but the character could have just as easily changed names. I'm glad I read it but it didn't particularly move me, just interested me.

[George Ilsley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A beautifully written but confusing book. What's more, the back cover explanation of the narrative makes no sense. At first, one believes the narrative, which begins with John, is straightforward. Because it is. But then Martin is introduced and the John details don't mesh. And then all the Martins and Johns are different. Well okay. The back cover does mention permutations, but also claimed alternating narratives. I could detect no recurring narratives, only permutations of characters named Martin, John, Susan, Henry, etc.

The strength of the work is found in the clarity and beauty of each of the set pieces. Unfortunately, for me, all the beautiful set pieces did not resonate into a complete symphony.

[Will · Rating 1 out of 5]

As a critic, Peck famously (and legitimately) accused a dozen or so well-known writers of being pretentious bores. In this "lyrical" (overwrought) and "nonlinear" (opaque) wreck, the cognitive dissonance is in full view every paragraph. Take this sentence from the penultimate chapter, "Fucking Martin":

"Nostalgia traps us—the food, the music, everything, chosen according to past times."

Oh does it? How enlightening! Then immediately after:

"'My friend who likes hummus,' Susan has called me—what about that is sexy?"

Sigh.

[Miriam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sublime. La scrittura di questo romanzo è semplicemente sublime. La prosa di Peck è emotivamente matura e tanto intima da assomigliare alla voce calda di un amico che si confida al lettore nella penombra di una stanza accarezzata da una leggera brezza estiva.

So che al momento è difficile trovare in giro questo libro (temo sia fuori catalogo), ma se siete abituati a comprare all'usato e doveste trovarvene una copia davanti, non lasciatevela scappare.

I racconti da cui è formato questo libro sono molti e diversi, ma la storia è sempre una, sempre la stessa. C'è sempre John, la voce narrante, un giovanotto nato e cresciuto in Kansas in una famiglia in cui affetto, rispetto e serenità sono termini sconosciuti. C'è sempre Martin, l'amante, un uomo affascinante che a volte si fa il bagno in una vasca piena di diamanti, che altre volte si lascia ispirare dal colore dei fiori, che altre volte ancora seduce suonando al pianoforte. E poi c'è Susan, l'amica di una vita; Beatrice, a volte madre, altre matrigna; il padre, sempre incapace di comprendere, accogliere ed amare; Henry, il primo a cui John si sia abbandonato veramente. Sullo sfondo, la grande piaga dell'Aids a generare tristezza, malinconia, paura.

La struttura è particolarissima, mai trovata altrove finora: ogni racconto è come un pezzo di un puzzle, il quale rappresenta la storia integrale. Solo che questo non è un puzzle normale in cui ogni pezzo combacia perfettamente con altri dando luogo a una storia logica e lineare. In questo puzzle ogni pezzo possiede delle piccole aree in comune con tutti gli altri, aree che permettono loro non di combaciare, bensì di sovrapporsi parzialmente: elementi ricorrenti nei vari racconti che, seppur variabili, compongono lo scheletro di una storia che poi è sempre la stessa, pur essendo sempre diversa.

Non so se mi sono spiegata, non è facile, ma fidatevi, vale la pena!
Ancora menzione speciale per la scrittura: wow (tra l'altro scritto solo a 24 anni, chapeau!).

[Nicolas Chinardet · Rating 3 out of 5]

John, Henry, Beatrice, Susan, Johnson, Harry and the eponymous Martin are the recurrent names of the characters in this book which its blurb describes as a novel.

This is how I began to read it but a few chapters in (around page 60), things start to shift and each chapter becomes more like a shirt story related to the other through the echoes created by the reuse of certain details and circumstances and of those names in different permutations.

The book becomes a sort of amorphous kaleidoscope where the realities described continually shift while still moving along some vaguely chronologically consistent narrative line.

Eventually it transpires that some of the material has to be autobiographical (those recurring circumstances presumably).

I found it difficult to get into the book but things definitely improved as the narrative moved on and as, I think, the elements described converged more closely with the author's experience.

I ended up almost liking this book which feels like an interesting experiment in style, though I'm not certain what this presentation brings to the reader that a more straight forward narration couldn't achieve.

[Neil · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m sure this is a very clever, subversive and interesting book. But I just didn’t really *get* it. Yes, John, Martin, Bea, Henry and Susan all appeared in different stories as different characters, but what was the real truth (if any?) and what was the point.

Some very disturbing scenes including a gun and a partner caring for an ill lover, but as a whole this was not for me.

I’m sure if someone to explain each nuance to me I’d get more out of it, but on a first reading I finished the book very confused.

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well now... wasn't this dreary and depressing and packed with abuse and misery. The structure, while interesting and unusual, just didn't work for me and made it impossible for me to get invested in any of the various storylines. The writing is beautiful and I appreciate that this book exists and what it's trying to do, but I can't say I particularly enjoyed the experience.

[Jules · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lend from my Gubby who sang it praises. Admittedly I found this to be a bit of a head scratcher 60 pages in due to the writing style. Once you can separate the 2 story lines you'll find it to be very clever and beautifully written. Perseverance pays off and it's impressive that Peck wrote this when he was only 25.

[Noah090500 · Rating 5 out of 5]

The smartest gay male centric novel I’ve ever read, super frustrating in the beginning but so rewarding in the end.

[ida · Rating 5 out of 5]

5++++/5

A better detailed review will come once I've reread it and made sense of the parts I don't really get yet.

This is the most emotionally draining book I've ever read. I mean, everything about this book hurt. It deals with death, abuse - both physical and sexual, prostitution, AIDS, loss, death and grief, all of which are very heavy topics. I think this book deals with all of them in a way that is manageable. It took me longer to read this book than I had thought, simply because I could only read about twenty pages a time before I had to put it down. Anyway, I thought this book was really really good and that everyone needs to pick it up. I thought it would deal only with AIDS, but it was about so much more than that.

And here's for my super rambly, really long take on what's actually going on in the story (with the ~alternate tales and whatnot) as well as my thoughts on the ending of the book and the switch in perspectives:

Like I already stated, I'm still somewhat confused as to what's really going on. I thought I knew it, but then the second to last chapter ('Fucking Martin') happened. I think it's clear that there is some kind of main/"real" story, and it goes like this: John and his father moves to Kansas, and his mother dies. His father breaks his hand when he finds John trying to fix that water pipe. John runs away from home and meets Martin at a party in New York City, where Susan introduces him to Martin. At the end of the book, you find out that the two of them only dated for six months before they found out Martin was infected with HIV. They then move back to Kansas, and that man (George?) invites them to dinner. Martin does indeed die in the bathroom, and the scene where John sleeps with Susan is "real" too. I believe that BDSM scene close to the end is what happens to John right after Martin dies and he goes out to deal with his grief.
What the other parts of the book is is something I can't really make sense of. I can't decide if those are glimpses into alternative universe(s) or just dreams or what if, like what could have happened had John and Martin not met the way they did.

The very last part of 'Fucking Martin' (as in the chapter, not the alternative title of the book) is what throws me off course a bit. This is also where it gets really interesting. When Susan calls John 'Dale', the book changes its tone quite a bit. Here, it also changes from third person to first person. The author hints at some parts of this story never really happening at all ("Perhaps some thing he remembers didn't occur at all). Dale also says straight out that he, in fact is John("But after tonight, Martin's face will be inseparable from Susan's, from John's own, which is just a mask for mine"). The author also states that "how can this story give Martin immortality when it can't even give him life?" where, I believe, the author wants to honor someone or several people who have died of AIDS but he can't even make them live in his story because in order for it to be about AIDS, people need to die. This story is clearly a way for Dale to try to cope with his own experiences, which I believe include not only AIDS-related trauma, but other horrible things as well and he debates whether he's done enough to actually help in the fight against AIDS on a larger scale, or if it's just been a way for him deal with his own personal traumas ("Has this story liberated anything but my tears? And is that enough? I want to ask. To which I can only answer, isn't that enough?"). The most interesting part is right at the end "In this story, I'd intended semen to be the water of life. But, in order to live, I've only ever tasted mine". I have no idea what that means, if there's a deeper meaning behind it than just the fact that he basically says that he hasn't slept with anyone because AIDS is transferred through e.g. semen. A final thought; I wonder how much of the things John went through that Dale Peck actually has experienced himself? It's awfully tragic and it made everything even more horrible and sad when I realized this might actually have happened for real.

[Klaus Mattes · Rating 2 out of 5]

„Glaubt“ man diese zu einem Roman verbundenen Storys, kann man ziemlich erschüttert oder entsetzt sein. Es geht um ein junges schwules Paar, der Jüngere, John, aus dessen Sicht meistens erzählt wird, ist 19, das sich im Osten kennen gelernt hat, dann allerdings in Kansas niedergelassen hat, wo Johns Eltern noch leben, doch man ist auseinander. Homosexualität wird in diesem Landstrich nicht akzeptiert und der Vater hat seinen Sohn so geprügelt, dass eine Narbe im Gesicht lebenslang sichtbar bleiben wird.

Sie finden beide Jobs in Nachtarbeit und treiben es oft miteinander im Morgenlicht, doch Martin, der Ältere und Aktive ist HIV-infiziert und stirbt innerhalb von zwei Jahren an AIDS. Wie ein amerikanischer Literaturkritiker seinerzeit gleich bemerkte: Zur Schullektüre wird dieses Buch in Amerika nie werden. Den Mut zu Grellem und Schrecklichem kann man ihn dann wohl auch positiv anrechnen, falls man mag, ich mag nur nicht so recht, dazu unten mehr.

Ein 13-Jähriger wird von einem bereits Grauhaarigen entjungfert und wehrt sich danach jahrelang gegen die Unterstellung, er wäre übervorteilt, ausgebeutet, von einem Pädophilen vergewaltigt worden. Nein, er habe diesen Mann geliebt! Am Ende des Buchs, als John den Verlust von Martin einigermaßen bewältigt hat, zeugt er mit einer alten Freundin ein Kind, obwohl sie genau weiß, dass er schwul bleiben wird. Oder dann jene gegen die Ekelschwelle tendierende Szene, wenn der todkranke Martin einen Kollaps in der Badewanne erleidet. Da steht dann: „Er sieht Martins Leben den Abfluss hinunter verschwinden.“ Nämlich – und das schreibt er ebenso deutlich hin wie diverse Male das Eindringen ins Arschloch – Brocken von Scheiße, Schleim, dunkelrote Schlieren. Ich fragte mich dann (auch wenn ich zu konzedieren bereit wäre, dass der Autor ähnliche Szenen in der Pflege von AIDS-Kranken selbst erlebt hat), was die dort drüben in Kansas für Abflussrohre haben. Nach sämtlichen Erfahrungen, die ich mit deutschen Abflüssen in Küche und Bad schon machen konnte, würde binnen kurzer Zeit gar nichts mehr davonlaufen, sondern alles brockig, blutig in der Wanne stehen.

Ich sollte erklären, was ich meine, wenn ich sage, „ich glaube“ diese Texte großenteils „nicht“.

Zuerst muss man festhalten, dass das kein wirklicher Roman ist, sondern die Struktur einer Kurzgeschichtensammlung hat. Alle Kapitel haben dieselben Figuren und einen gewissen chronologischen Zusammenhang. (Springen bisweilen in der Zeit aber auch rückwärts, das muss man dann erst mal merken.) Es gibt nicht die eine große Geschichte, die durchgehende Handlung. Vielmehr versucht jedes Stück (Kapitel) einen Zauber für sich selbst zu erschaffen. Und zwar nicht, wenn sich das vorhin auch anders angehört haben mag, über dramatische Ereignisse, sondern über poetisch „verschobene“ Beobachtungen von Kleinigkeiten. Immer wieder kam mir das wie Storys vor, die einer - nach dem Muster von Raymond Carver - sich ausgedacht hat und dann daran gearbeitet, ihnen durch „seltsamen“ Sprachgebrauch eine individuelle Note zu geben. Kurz: Für mich war das die typische Creative-Writing-Class-Ware junger Amerikaner. „Nimm ein Bild und dann denke dir so viele Mini-Beobachtungen und Valeurs der Stimmung hinzu, wie du nur erfinden kannst, um möglichst „anders“ zu erscheinen.“ Resultat: ständig over-written, ständig Blendwerk. Auf dass Writing-Professorin und Klassenkameraden sich ihre Hände über den Köpfen zusammenschlagen: „Hui, wie eigen er denkt und fühlt, wie sorgfältig er Wörter handhabt!“

Mein Verständnis von Literatur ist das nicht, das ist mein Verständnis von Kunsthandwerk.

Als wir ins Bett steigen, packt mich die Müdigkeit, und wie ich sehe, wirkt Martins Gesicht genauso ausgezehrt, wie ich mich fühle. Unsere Hände scheinen dem Weg des geringsten Widerstands zu folgen, und bald sind wir – ohne auch nur ein Kondom zu benötigen – klebrig, und Martin schläft neben mir, und das Summen der Klimaanlage unterm Fenster füllt meinen Kopf, während ich noch neben ihm liege. Es hört sich an wie ein leichter Regenschauer. Ich bleibe im Bett und horche darauf, außerstande einzuschlafen, und dann fange ich an, mir vorzustellen, daß es tatsächlich regnet, daß die grüne Bettdecke, auf der wir liegen, ein grasbewachsener Hügel ist, und ich stelle mir vor, daß Schweiß, Samen und Speichel, die unsere Körper benetzen, in Wirklichkeit reines Wasser sind. Neben mir stöhnt Martin leicht im Schlaf und streckt die Hand aus, auf der Suche, nehme ich an, nach mir. Ich betrachte einen Moment lang seine tastenden Finger, und dann nehme ich sie, beinahe widerstrebend, in meine.

Die Sache, dass sie kein Kondom gebraucht haben: Wo der eine HIV-infiziert ist, der andere noch sehr jung und passiv, fragt man sich die ganze Zeit, ob sie sich (noch) an die Safer-Sex-Regeln halten. Das hakt er hier mal ab (und noch an einigen anderen Stellen), ja, sonst benutzen sie Gummis. (Allerdings ist John am Ende positiv, er warnt seine Freundin, du läufst Gefahr, wenn du ein Kind von einem infizierten Mann möchtest.) Aber an dieser Stelle passt es nicht. Eine Deutlichkeit des sexuellen Verfahrens ist für den Text hier nicht notwendig. Und dass er sie mit dem Wort „klebrig“ auch noch unterstreicht, ist - zumindest in dieser deutschen Übertragung - der „poetischen Atmosphäre“ dieser Nacht nicht zuträglich. Dann diese Sprünge von „an sich unwichtigen“ Sinneseindrücken über Metaphernketten in die Allegorie einer vollendeten Liebe: Einer hört eine Klimaanlage. Er denkt an Regen. Er versucht diesen Regen zu „glauben“. Schon wird aus der Bettdecke ein Berg, draußen in der flachen Landschaft. Wenn Regen, dann muss auch das Sperma auf seinem Körper Wasser sein. (Ein schiefes Bild, da das Sperma natürlich längst aufgetrocknet ist, zumindest: „klebrig“ - und Wasser ist nicht klebrig.) Er hat dieses Wort „Reinheit“ angestrebt. Mit dem Geräusch einer Klimaanlage hat „Reinheit“ nichts zu tun, aber mit dem literarischen Verfahren eines Creative-Writer-Textarbeiters. Jetzt scheint die Hand des Schlafenden nach ihm zu tasten. Nun gut, nichts dagegen. Das kann so gewesen sein, das könnte jeder von uns so erleben. Aber literarisch ist es ihm noch zu wenig. Es ist ihm zu simpel. Er braucht seinen individuellen Dale-Peck-Effekt. Der nun ist, dass einer, der an sich gerade mal glücklich ist, sich von seinem Glück fast vergewaltigt fühlt.

Huch, wie ist er feinsinnig!, jubeln die Anhänger dieser Manier. Und ich sage: Ich nehme es ihm nicht ab. Das gesamte Buch ist so: Erst hatte er da mal eine einzelne kleine Geschichte. Dann denkt er sich eine Vorgeschichte für deren Protagonisten aus. Dann noch eine Folgegeschichte für denselben Protagonisten. Und noch eine für die Jugend des Partners des Protagonisten: Sein Vater stirbt, die Mutter heiratet einen neuen Mann, irgendwann, wenn sie nicht daheim ist, haben der Junge und sein Stiefvater Sex. Und so weiter.
Es ist so gemacht. So gemacht.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edit: So I checked out another book by this author (The Law of Enclosures, looks good) because I was so smitten with this book.... and on the front cover, it mentions Peck's debut novel as being called Fucking Martin. Which is a much different title than Martin and John. I'm guessing for anti-profanity related reasons, the title was changed. Cuz you don't often see fuck in the title of books, eh? Why not? I'd still read it.. and I think it adds a whole new dimension to the book. Looking at it through the perspective of John's experiences fucking Martin...though it's so much more than a book about fucking, of course. Maybe that's why it was changed. I dunno. I think Martin and John is a nice title too, but Fucking Martin also has its charm, right? Fucking censorship. Unless there's another reason it was changed, I'm just kind of assuming. And pondering. And blabbering on about it. Hmmkay.

Beautiful and powerful. I am in awe of the author, he has such a strong voice and such awesome insights into people's relationships with one another. It's violent and sad and lovely and heartbreaking. I will have to read this again to fully absorb it.

[Skip · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's true, the literature that came out of the epidemic — Our Holocaust, as one older gay jewish friend described the dark years of the 1980s and 90s to me the other day — is so singularly unmatched in depth, intensity and emotional dimension. It's hard to find writing which captures so well the suffering and also the surviving of so many, as the AIDS literature from that era.
Dale Peck and this first novel is firmly in that league.
It's a classic I could read over and over again, and continue to walk away with something fresh. Something I hadn't seen before.
"Martin and John" offers — to borrow Peck's words — more than understanding. Empathy.

[Allan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short read which was at the same time both very challenging and worthwhile. Made up of a series of short stories, each featuring characters named Martin and John, some of which are linked, some not, with an interlinking narrative thread which is explained and tied together in the final chapter. Contains very graphic violent sex scenes and domestic abuse at times, while at others the deep love between the two characters is portrayed in a variety of ways.

Not sure where I heard of this novel, but I'd definitely consider it to be a worthwhile though niche read.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

i saw peck being interviewed on the cbc when i was 17. i think i fell in love with him a little bit. I found a copy of his book, and realised that this was probably one of the greatest, harshest, and most heroic things I had ever read. His novel was produced in the middle of the birth of the "AIDS novel", but his work went beyond that. I lost my copy of this wonderful book, and yearn for it still.

It was, and still is, the book that makes me want to be a writer.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Martin and John over a single, feverish night (I had the flu) and when I was done, I read it again. It's that good. It's that compelling. And Peck's prose and style is just that amazing. No better book about the imagination and the rampages of loss and illness has been written since Martin and John. This is destined to be a classic.

[Alvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this eons ago and can't remember anything but being rather impressed.

[Rodney Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

RE RE markable. Story, style and influence

[Virgowriter (Brad Windhauser) · Rating 3 out of 5]

We’ll written at the sentence level, and though individual chapters are interesting, the main story is confusing.

[Sean Meriwether · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like a mystery novel, all the details you need to pull the pieces together are in the final chapter. I would argue it might have been better to start this sequence of stories with a clearer definition of the book's objective, though there is an abstract moment when a young version of John imagines stepping into Martin's skin to see the world through his eyes. I do not believe it is a spoiler to spell out that John is an author writing real and imagined stories to make sense of his intense but short-lived relationship with Martin, possibly to keep his memory alive, similar to the baby that John fathers with Martin's best friend, Susan; like the stories, the baby is given away.

The stories are loosely arranged along an arc with multiple origin stories at the fore, "how they met" stories in the center, and those dealing with Martin dying at the end. There are many different variations on the theme of (admittedly exclusively white) gay male relationships as they meet at different ages and life situations, for minutes or remaining together, sharing a first kiss or navigating the numb aftermath of a premature death, with some details overlapping but many variables changed. The chapters dealing with AIDS are stronger for their focus on the mundane details, which pulls these passages back from becoming maudlin. The writing can often turn poetic, and the sexual encounters appear like lightening flashes, but Peck touches on so many variations of Martin and John we never gain insight into who they really are or have enough time to develop empathy for either man. We are only left with fragments, but perhaps that was the author's intent to represent the fracturing impact of AIDS on our community.

[Marta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Martin and John (1993)

Il libro è formato da diversi racconti, tutti con gli stessi personaggi (John, Martin, Henry, Susan, Bea) ma in ruoli e contesti diversi; ho faticato a leggere la prima parte, temporalmente localizzata nel periodo dell'infanzia\adolescenza della voce narrante, ma sempre caratterizzata da un clima di abusi e violenza familiare. Invece quando si raggiunge l'età adulta il libro si fa più interessante: fondamentalmente ci sono Martin e John che si incontrano e si innamorano in vari scenari, poi spesso Martin muore di AIDS. Sicuramente se fosse stato solo questo il tema del libro lo avrei apprezzato molto di più; il capitolo che ho preferito è La ricerca dell'acqua.

"Non li ho strappati dalle radici, sai. L'anno prossimo rispunteranno". Parla come se dovessimo essere ancora qui l'anno prossimo, ma poi penso: le radici a cui si riferisce, si estendono ben oltre i confini di questa casa. pag. 83

"Stiamo solo cambiando aspetto esteriormente. Dentro siamo sempre gli stessi." pag. 94

E' un anno che sto senza far niente e comincio ad averne abbastanza di tutto questo, dell'odore di polvere, della vista dell'erba alta che si dondola nel vento. Sono abituato all'attività. Ma ho anche paura. Se pure al momento non ho nient'altro, al momento ho il controllo della situazione, e non voglio rischiare di perderlo facendo qualcosa, incontrando un uomo, trovando un amico, un lavoro. So che alla fine dovrò fare qualcosa, ma in questo momento c'è soltanto la camera da letto, e questo mi basta, la camera da letto, il letto, il pensiero di dormire. Una mattina mi sveglierò e non farò una delle cose che faccio sempre, e allora saprò che è arrivato il momento di cambiare; oppure semplicemente non mi sveglierò e finirà così. pag. 164