The Night Listener

Description

The new novel by the author of The Tales of the City sequence. Gabriel Noone is a writer whose late night radio stories have brought him into the homes of millions. Noone is in the midst of a painful separation from his lover of ten years when a publisher sends him proofs of a remarkable book- the memoir of a sickly thirteen-year-old boy who suffered horrific sexual abuse at the hands of his parents. Now living with his adoptive mother, Donna, Pete Lomax is not only a brave and gifted diarist but a devoted listener of Noone's show. When Noone phones the boy to offer encouragement, it soon becomes clear that Pete sees in this heartsick, middle-aged storyteller the loving father he's always wanted. Thus begins an extraordinary friendship that grows deeper only as the boy's health deteriorates, freeing Noone to unlock his innermost feelings. Then, out of the blue, troubling new questions arise, exploding Noone's comfortable assumptions and causing his ordered existence to spin wildly out of control. As he walks a vertiginous line between truth and illusion, he is finally forced to confront all his relationships - familial, romantic and erotic. As complex and hypnotically engrossing as the best of mysteries, The Night Listener is an astonishing tour de force that moves and challenges Maupin's readers as never before.

Armistead Maupin was born in Washington, D.C. in 1944 but was brought up in Raleigh, North Carolina. A graduate of the University of North Carolina, he served as a naval officer in Vietnam before moving to California in 1971 as a reporter for the Associated Press. In 1976 he launched his daily newspaper serial, Tales of the City, in the San Francisco Chronicle. The first fiction to appear in an American daily for decades, Tales grew into an international sensation when compiled and rewritten as novels. Maupin's six-volume Tales of the City sequence - Tales of the City, More Tales of the City, Further Tales of the City, Babycakes, Significant Others, and Sure of You - are now multi-million bestsellers published in eleven languages. The first three of these novels were adapted into widely acclaimed television mini-series. Maupin's 1992 novel, Maybe the Moon, chronicling the adventures of the world's shortest woman, was a number one bestseller. The Night Listener was made into a feature film starring Robin Williams and Toni Collette in 2006. Armistead Maupin lives in San Francisco, California. For more information about Armistead Maupin and his work, please visit his official author website at- www.armisteadmaupin.com

'A tremendous, hugely satisfying read' * Time Out * 'Absorbing, sophisticated, funny and touching' * The Sunday Times * 'Elegantly conceived and executed, The Night Listener marks a long overdue return to fiction by one of America's best-loved writers...a real page-turner' * Sunday Telegraph * 'His most mature, mellow and moving novel yet' * Independent * 'A mystery studded with elegant twists and turns' * The New York Times Book Review *