Many years ago, when the first volume of Tales of the City was going to press, Christopher Isherwood compared its author's narrative gifts to those of Charles Dickens. This has proven to be the blurb of a lifetime, an ever-renewable currency appearing on almost all of Armistead Maupin's subsequent books. Yet it has held up well--Dickens's gentle satire and broad good humor live on in Maupin more than in any other English-speaking writer. The Night Listener is his most ambitious work to date. While not strictly autobiographical, the story does teasingly suggest correspondences to the author's own life in a way that will delight and frustrate his many fans. The main character, Gabriel Noone, is a professional storyteller who broadcasts roughly autobiographical sketches for a long-running PBS series, "Noone at Night," stories about people "caught in the supreme joke of modern life who were forced to survive by making families of their friends." When the novel opens, Gabriel is still reeling from the announcement that his much younger, longtime partner Jess (a.k.a. Jamie in the "Noone at Night" stories, and a.k.a. Terry Anderson, Maupin's real-life, much-younger partner, for those who like to track associations) wants to move into his own apartment and start dating other men. With the success of his HIV cocktail, Jess has exceeded his own life expectancy. Having prepared himself so well to die, he now needs to learn how to live again. To Gabriel's distress, Jess's new life involves leather, multiple piercings, and books on men's drumming circles.

When an editor sends Gabriel yet another book to blurb, he reluctantly opens the package to find a long, rending memoir by Pete Lomax, an HIV-positive 13-year-old survivor of incest, rape, and sexual slavery. The book is called The Blacking Factory, after the miserable London bottling factory where Dickens spent part of his poverty-stricken childhood. As Gabriel reflects: Pete thinks we all have a blacking factory, some awful moment, early on, when we surrender our childish hearts as surely as we lose our baby teeth. And the outcome can't be called. Some of us end up like Dickens; others like Jeffrey Dahmer. It's not a question of good or evil, Pete believes. Just the random brutality of the universe and our native ability to withstand it. After Pete escaped from his parents and was adopted by a therapist named Donna Lomax, his slow recovery was helped along by his memoir-writing and by frequent doses of "Noone at Night."

Touched by Pete's devotion to his stories, as well as the boy's obvious need for a father figure, Gabriel finds himself drawn into an intense relationship with his young fan, involving long, late-night phone calls that begin to worry Gabriel's friends. And, other than their mutual need, how much does he really know about Pete, anyway? As Gabriel begins to question his own motives, as well as those of the boy, The Night Listener transforms itself from an absorbing but quotidian story of loss and midlife angst into a dark and suspenseful page-turner with a playful metaphysical aspect and an un-Dickensian sexual candor. --Regina Marler

From Publishers Weekly
The lines between reality and illusion are intriguingly blurred in this novel from the author of the Tales of the City series. Maupin also takes on various questions about how art imitates life, since there are many similarities here between author and protagonist. The deceptively simple story line concerns Gabriel Noone, a San Francisco radio personality whose "grabby little armchair yarns" have developed a cult following; indeed, the books based on these weekly NPR broadcasts "have never stopped selling." But Gabriel is experiencing severe writer's block as he endures an emotional crisis triggered by the decision of Jess, his longtime male companion, to separate: "I lost a vital engine I never even knew I had." When a manuscript sent to Gabriel for an endorsement turns out to be a harrowing memoir of sexual abuse written by a 13-year-old, he is moved to contact the precocious youngster. It seems that Gabriel has been an on-the-air lifeline for Peter Lomax, who has been adopted by a female doctor with some pressing problems of her own. This vulnerable threesome embark on a pas de trois that envelops the reader in an increasingly absorbing puzzle. Providing a moving counterpoint to Gabriel's growing attachment toAeven dependence onAPete is his inability to cope with his estrangement from Jess. As in his earlier works, reading Maupin's prose is like meeting up with a beloved old friend; it's an easy, uncomplicated encounter filled with warmth, wisdom and familiar touches of humor. But there's pathos here as well, and sharp-edged drama with a few hairpin turns. As Gabriel cautions, "I'm a fabulist by trade, so be forewarned: I've spent years looting my life for fiction." And what splendid booty GabrielAand MaupinAhave compiled for readers' enjoyment. 100,000 first printing; 16-city author tour. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Devastated by his breakup with longtime partner Jess, author Gabriel Noone is in a reflective and fragile emotional state when he is asked to comment on a manuscript. Written by 13-year-old Pete, the journal relates a horrific childhood of sexual abuse by his parents and paying customers, resulting in Pete's contracting AIDS. Adopted by a supportive and loving social worker, the young man has been a loyal fan of Gabriel's, who is a public radio storyteller with a large following. Pete and Gabriel begin communicating via telephone and become increasingly involved in each other's lives. When Jess questions the authenticity of Pete's writings and, indeed, his very existence, Gabriel embarks upon a journey both figurative and literal that explores his changing relationship with his partner, his childhood, and his current relationship with his blustery Charlestonian father. Celebrated for Tales of the City, Maupin is a master of character development, deftly weaving lives and creating intriguing, credible people who stay with the listener long after the story concludes. Although there are sexually graphic passages, including a disappointingly gratuitous truck stop scene, the author's reading and overall handling of this compelling story is masterful. Coupled with an original, haunting musical score, this presentation will appeal not only to Maupin's fans but to a wide audience. Susan McCaffrey, Haslett H.S., MI Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
Fans of the author's TALES OF THE CITY will find a few surprises in this novel. San Francisco remains the backdrop; the telling details and apt phrases still pertain, but the glibness is muted, and suspense and mystery take on a new prominence. The hero of this first-person narrative, a gay author not unlike Maupin, chances to strike up a long-distance relationship with a kind of prodigy--an AIDS-suffering, abused teen who has escaped and then written brilliantly about his ghastly childhood. Maupin calls this book his VERTIGO, but the Hitchcockian notes impress one less than the overriding themes of life, death, and love. Although the author clearly loves to read aloud, he does not do so with particular finesse. However, as he is impersonating a character who reads for an NPR series, his limitation proves a kind of asset. His voice and style would easily complement those of ALL THINGS CONSIDERED's popular commentators. Y.R. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
Gay novelist Gabriel Noone is blue since his spouse, Jess, decamped to pursue his bliss among San Francisco's leather men. Indeed, Gabriel has writer's block, necessitating reruns of his weekly NPR storytelling feature. Then he gets the manuscript of a book to blurb. Written by a 13-year-old boy, Pete, it is the story of his long sexual abuse by his parents, who also peddled him to other pedophiles, and his eventual escape and adoption by a psychologist, only to fall ill with ever severer bouts of AIDS-related pneumonia. Impressed by the book, Gabriel is enchanted when his expressed interest in contacting Pete reaps a series of nighttime phone calls from the boy and his adoptive mother, Donna. Moreover, Gabriel falls like the proverbial ton of bricks when Pete starts calling him Dad. Gabriel must meet Pete in person, and Donna holds out hope that he will, but attempts to do so are thwarted. Gabriel has to find out the truth, which, as is typical in Tales of the City creator Maupin's work, isn't necessarily what it seems and even flip-flops, seeming one thing and then another and yet another. Maupin's squeaky clean style, seductive sentimentality, and gift for disarming patter make for a most appealing read, a kind of, not magic realism, but pretty, magical melodrama. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

FROM OUR EDITORS

In the 19th century, almost every novelist -- from Dickens to Dostoevsky -- published his fiction serially in newspapers. By the end of the 20th century, Armistead Maupin, whose wildly popular Tales of the City first appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, was one of the few remaining practitioners of the form. In his latest novel, The Night Listener, Maupin draws on his experience of being at the center of this serial phenomenon with a compelling story about a celebrity yarn-spinner who finds himself on the listening end of a tale he wants desperately to believe.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

After an absence of eight years, Armistead Maupin returns with the tale of Gabriel Noone, a writer whose cult-hit radio serial "Noone at Night" has brought him into the homes of millions. Noone is in the midst of a painful separation from his lover of 10 years when a publisher sends him proofs of a remarkable book: the memoir of an ailing 13-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 only grows deeper 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 to control. As he walks a line between truth and illusion, he is finally forced to confront all of 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 will move and challenge Maupin's readers as never before.

FROM THE CRITICS

Philadelphia Inquirer

For this, the audio format is all but a requirement...the whole book is an exploration of the power of voice.

Times Literary Supplement

A consummate entertainer...It is Maupin's Dickensian gift to be able to render love convincingly...He works his dialogue with a jeweler's precision and a playwright's development of dramatic irony.

Publishers Weekly

HAfter an eight-year wait, Maupin rewards his fans and accomplishes the unthinkable: surpassing the excellence of his Tales of the City series. Filled with twists and turns that rival The Sixth Sense and The Crying Game, Maupin's new novel is a deceptively simple page-turner perfectly suited for the audio format. Surprises that would be telegraphed in a film are perfectly sprung on listeners. Not only is it a book that listeners will want to discuss with friends, but once finished and all is revealed, it's likely people will want to listen to it again with a fresh ear to hear the clues that have been planted along the way. Maupin's most reflective, full-bodied and autobiographical novel yet begins with alter ego Gabriel Noone, author of the cult radio serial Noone at Night, facing two disruptions in his calm, settled life: his longtime lover, Jess, has moved out and Gabe has developed writer's block. Amid this stress, Gabe's editor asks him to read a manuscript written by an HIV-positive 13-year-old named Pete Lomax that details his escape from years of sexual and physical abuse. Gabe is so moved, he calls the boy and a friendship develops. His relationship with Pete (and Pete's adoptive mother, Donna) helps clarify other troubled relationships in his life while opening up new questions concerning trust, truth and friendship. Maupin presents his tale with such polished, effortless elegance that his talent can be underestimated because the sweat behind it is so invisible. Maupin's melodious, expressive reading reinforces his smooth prose, which is written to be read aloud. Audio is the perfect medium for this born storyteller. Simultaneous release with the HarperCollins hardcover (Forecasts, Aug. 7). (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Gabriel Noone is a successful writer whose radio serial, Noone at Night, has brought him legions of fans and affectionate fame. But his long-term companion, Jess, has just left him, and he's a mess: he can't write, he can't communicate with his father, and he can't understand why Jess is suddenly changing. Enter a special fan, a sick 13-year-old boy who forms a deep connection with Gabriel over the radio and telephone. Peter Lomax was severely abused as a child but finds he can trust Gabriel, who in turn discovers he can open himself up to this amazing boy. However, Gabriel slowly begins to doubt his young friend, just as he has had to doubt other important figures in his life. While the novel centers on the mysterious Peter, Maupin's (Maybe the Moon) latest is less a suspense story than a likable tale about major and minor betrayals by lovers, friends, and family members. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/00.]--Devon Thomas, Hass Assocs., Ann Arbor, MI Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

AudioFile - AudioFile Review

Fans of the author's TALES OF THE CITY will find a few surprises in this novel. San Francisco remains the backdrop; the telling details and apt phrases still pertain, but the glibness is muted, and suspense and mystery take on a new prominence. The hero of this first-person narrative, a gay author not unlike Maupin, chances to strike up a long-distance relationship with a kind of prodigy--an AIDS-suffering, abused teen who has escaped and then written brilliantly about his ghastly childhood. Maupin calls this book his VERTIGO, but the Hitchcockian notes impress one less than the overriding themes of life, death, and love. Although the author clearly loves to read aloud, he does not do so with particular finesse. However, as he is impersonating a character who reads for an NPR series, his limitation proves a kind of asset. His voice and style would easily complement those of ALL THINGS CONSIDERED's popular commentators. Y.R. ￯﾿ﾽ AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine