One of Earl’s bathrooms is closed because it’s constantly attracting cockroaches. And Holleran slowly gives the relationship an increasingly otherworldly, creepy vibe. Regardless, a Library of America volume would be the least he deserves.Ī world filled with art but no nature is, well, unnatural. Blame the long waits between books, or a mainstream literary culture that’s often treated LGBTQ fiction as a niche enterprise. His essays and other works of fiction are similarly rooted in the lives of gay men, but his Jamesian powers of observation haven’t translated into major prizes or name recognition. His 2006 novel, “Grief,” is a melancholy masterpiece about how so many of those men were cut down by AIDS. Holleran’s debut, 1978’s “ Dancer From the Dance,” is among the great post-Stonewall novels, capturing the fading youth of a coterie of gay New York men. Which is to say that it continues the project Holleran began four decades ago: elegant, contemplative works obsessed with matters of intimacy and loss. “This story is about the things we accumulate during a lifetime but cannot bear to part with before we die,” its unnamed narrator explains. Andrew Holleran’s fifth novel, “ The Kingdom of Sand,” announces its theme early.
