Item Detail

Charles, and English writer living in Paris, reads his newest novel, based on his own affair with a married man, to Adolphe, a successful film director

With Paris as a romantic backdrop, Harvey brings together four urbane characters fantasizing their way into painful artistic wholeness. Adolphe, an aging film director, embellishes his lost amours with dreams of Hollywood and grand opera. Charles, an Englishman, writes a novel ( A Burning House ) about his love for the conscientious Mark and, reading excerpts to Adolphe, seeks affirmation from that flamboyant ``queen.'' As Anna mocks the vanity of Adophe and Charles, Mark analyzes his love for an off-stage wife and the bisexual Charles. These four converse in lusty arias which form a somber/amusing operatic novel whose motifs are homerotic passion, illusion, and a hunger for self-fulfillment. Frank Allen, Assoc. Dean, Continuing Education, Allentown Coll., Center Valley, Pa. Copyright 1986 Cahners Business Information.