From Publishers Weekly
Russell's third novel (after Boys of Life), a transplanetary sexual fantasia that chronicles the life of an astronaut's family in the age of AIDS, is so humongous in its attempted scope that it succeeds at a lot of things, among them confounding the reader. Told by four different characters in alternating sections, the book charts the lives of numerous people in such varied locations as Florida, Turkey, Africa, Washington, D.C., and the moon. There are characters who succeed entirely, like Allen Cloud, repressed astronaut, who goes into mental orbit when he discovers that his son, Jonathan, is dying of AIDS, and whose story is well realized through tight, realist writing. Yet the novel suffers from a plethora of imagery and a glut of metaphor: a grove of sycamores that die by the saw; the moon; various seas of tranquillity. The book's center, depicting Jonathan's sexual exploits and illness, is clouded by long-winded surrealist riffs and disjointed meditations on outer space. The fascinated speculation particular to Russell's writing works best when it's hitched to real-life objects-like Cloud's rocket-and not left free-floating in space. We are left dazed and tingly at the end, as if we had just witnessed an abortive moon mission. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
In 1970, astronaut Allen Cloud is about to begin training for an Apollo moon mission when his personal life crumbles. He separates from his wife, Joan, and discovers that his mercurial son Jonathan is gay. Joan and Jonathan depart Houston for Tennessee, where Jonathan meets Stayton Voegli, a shy preacher's son who becomes his lover. Events then shift to 1990 when Allen's life has soured as a result of a bad business deal and Jonathan is dying of AIDS. This far-from-tranquil tale of voyages-both geographical and emotional-weaves together the alternating voices of its four main characters. Though Russell sometimes seems unsure whether it is Allen's or Jonathan's story he is trying to tell, he presents a compelling chronicle of the fracturing of an American family. For general collections.Lawrence Rungren, Bedford Free P.L., Mass.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Russell's original and compellingly complex novels, especially Boys of Life , are unprecedented in their authentic portrayal of the gay male experience, but Russell's keen sense of emotional truth extends to all kinds of characters. Here he dramatizes the failed connections between family members in an astronaut's household. The novel begins in Houston in 1970 as Allen Cloud is preparing for his flight to the moon and his wife is readying herself for her flight to freedom. Allen's mind is always in the heavens, and Joan is tired of coping with their teenage son's homosexuality and her drinking problem in secret. Russell expertly switches points of view as he conveys the intensity of each character's search for fulfillment. Allen is an amazing creation, and Russell's depiction of his less-than-perfect moon landing and the profound postlunar depression that follows are brilliantly unsettling. These disorienting episodes play in effective counterpoint to Jonathan's fearless pursuit of erotic homosexual adventure. Slender and androgynous, Jonathan is intent on pleasure at any cost, an exuberant and lusty lifestyle that, 20 years later, leads to AIDS and a redefinition of love. Russell leaves us contemplating the paradox of how some endeavors, even an event as radical as walking on the moon, seem to evaporate with hardly a trace, while others, far more natural and spontaneous, prove fatal. Donna Seaman


From Kirkus Reviews
Russell (Boys of Life, 1991) limns his family drama's main themes with masterful strokes, although the rest of the canvas pales in comparison. Allen Cloud is a fine astronaut but a lousy husband and father; he can make it to the moon, but can't go the distance in his marriage. Oblivious to his wife Joan's unhappiness (and alcoholism), flustered by her decision to leave, and shaken by her suspicion that their son Jonathan is gay, he lets them drift out of his life in Houston to a small town in Tennessee. While Joan slips deeper into alcoholism, Jonathan revels in his homosexuality, wholeheartedly embracing life and just about every man who comes his way. In Tennessee, he elicits the passion of a repressed preacher's son, with painful and long-ranging consequences. Jonathan is at once the linchpin and the squeaky wheel of this novel, a ridiculously precocious high school student at the outset who continues to be the magical, mystical center around which everyone's life seems to revolve at the conclusion more than 20 years later. Yet the precocity and wit designed to make Jonathan special are rather overused traits in contemporary gay fiction, which may be why the other characters always seem more in awe of him than the reader is. And the action slows badly and loses credibility when mother and son decide to move to Turkey and live, most conveniently, on insurance money long untouched. Despite these weaknesses, there is some breathtaking writing here. Russell weaves a web of personal relationships subtly and expertly, teasing out in the process human truths that shock and satisfy. This orchestration comes to a gratifying and occasionally bittersweet climax at the novel's close, when Jonathan's fate becomes almost incidental to the positive effects he's wrought, albeit often painfully, in others' lives. A worthwhile if somewhat bumpy ride through 20 years of one remarkable family's life. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
Paul Russell's delicately layered, richly textured novels have won him widespread acclaim as one of the finest contemporary American novelists. Sea of Tranquillity, possibly his most ambitious and rewarding novel, traces a disintegrating nuclear family across two tumultuous decades of American life - from the early '60s to the '80s - and is told in a quartet of voices: astronaut Allen Cloud, his wife, their gay son, Jonathan, and his friend/lover. Ranging in time and emotion from the optimism of the first moon shot to the dark landscape of the age of AIDS, Sea of Tranquillity is an extraordinary and compelling novel.



About the Author
Paul Russell is the author of five novels - including The Coming Storm - as well as The Gay 100, a work of non-fiction. His most recent novel was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award as well as the winner of the Ferro-Grumley Award. He is a professor at Vassar College and lives in upstate New York.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Blazing a trajectory across more than two decades of American life, from the sky-high optimism of the first moon shots to the dark human landscape of the age of AIDS, Sea of Tranquillity tells the story of a splintering nuclear family. A father, a mother, a son, their intimates, and their lovers are all brought to life with immediacy and insight, honesty and compassion. The head of the family is Allen Cloud, a handsome, brave, dedicated NASA astronaut, a hero fit for the cover of Life, but a man whose private life is in cruel contrast with his public image. For Allen is far more at home walking on the moon than in the world of human relationships. Tormented by his wife's desperate need and raging drunkenness, and by his son's obvious homosexuality, Allen must come to terms with the desertion of one, and the demand for recognition of the other. He tries to build a new life with an all-American dream girl who has survived one nightmare and now, with Allen, finds herself facing another. Allen's story interweaves with that of his wife, Joan, whose search for happiness takes her from the bottom of the bottle in middle America to a mountainside in Turkey where she finds spiritual salvation. Looming even larger in the lives of both father and mother is their son, Jonathan, whose own journey of self-discovery leads him from the suburban astronaut community in Houston to the sophisticated gay world of the East Coast. His fearless acknowledgment of his sexual identity and avid pursuit of physical and spiritual fulfillment has its counterpoint in a shy and repressed preacher's son, Stayton Voegli, whose desires Jonathan awakens in high school and whose destiny Jonathan permanently alters, for better or for worse. Sea of Tranquillity is told by a brilliant quartet of voices that move with grace from life to life and love to love over time and space. The spectrum of emotion that sweeps from razor-sharp wit to wrenching heartache, from anger and alienation to acceptance and

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Russell's third novel (after Boys of Life), a transplanetary sexual fantasia that chronicles the life of an astronaut's family in the age of AIDS, is so humongous in its attempted scope that it succeeds at a lot of things, among them confounding the reader. Told by four different characters in alternating sections, the book charts the lives of numerous people in such varied locations as Florida, Turkey, Africa, Washington, D.C., and the moon. There are characters who succeed entirely, like Allen Cloud, repressed astronaut, who goes into mental orbit when he discovers that his son, Jonathan, is dying of AIDS, and whose story is well realized through tight, realist writing. Yet the novel suffers from a plethora of imagery and a glut of metaphor: a grove of sycamores that die by the saw; the moon; various seas of tranquillity. The book's center, depicting Jonathan's sexual exploits and illness, is clouded by long-winded surrealist riffs and disjointed meditations on outer space. The fascinated speculation particular to Russell's writing works best when it's hitched to real-life objects-like Cloud's rocket-and not left free-floating in space. We are left dazed and tingly at the end, as if we had just witnessed an abortive moon mission. (Sept.)

Library Journal