David Leavitt

January, 1913, Cambridge. G.H. Hardy – eccentric, charismatic and considered the greatest British mathematician of his age – receives a mysterious envelope covered with Indian stamps. Inside he finds a rambling letter from a self-professed mathematical genius who claims to be on the brink of solving the most important mathematical problem of his time. Hardy determines to learn more about this mysterious Indian clerk, Srinivasa Ramanujan, a decision that will profoundly affect not only his own life, and that of his friends, but the entire history of mathematics. Set against the backdrop of the First World War, and populated with such luminaries as D.H. Lawrence and Bertrand Russell, The Indian Clerk fashions from this fascinating period an utterly compelling story about our need to find order in the world.

Biography of the persecuted genius who helped create the modern computer.

"In these nine stories, David Leavitt surveys the complicated politics of human relationships in families and communities, in the present day and over the course of the last century.". "Here are stories that range in form from a historical survey to a police interrogation to an e-mail exchange. In "The Infection Scene," a young man's determined effort to contract HIV is juxtaposed with an account of the early life of Lord Alfred Douglas. In the title story, an expatriate tries to make sense of his ex-partner's senseless murder. In "Crossing St. Gotthard'" the members of an American family traveling in Europe at the turn of the twentieth century find themselves confronting their own mortality as they plunge into a train tunnel in Switzerland. And in "Black Box," the partner of a man killed in a plane crash is drawn into an unholy alliance with a fellow "crash widow.""--BOOK JACKET.

At the age of eighteen Paul Porterfield dreams of playing piano at the world's great concert halls, yet the closest he's come has been to turn pages for his idol, Richard Kennington, a former prodigy who is entering middle age. The two begin a love affair that affects their lives in ways neither could have predicted. "Absorbing from start to finish" (The New Yorker), The Page Turner testifies to the tenacity of the human spirit and the resiliency of the human heart.

"At the dawn of the Reagan era, Martin Bauman - nineteen, clever, talented, and insecure - is enrolled at a prestigious college with a hard-won place under the tutelage of the legendary and enigmatic Stanley Flint, a man who can make or break careers with the flick of a weary hand. Martin is poised on the brink of the writing life, and his twin desires, equally urgent, are to get into print and find his way out of the closet.". "As he makes his way through the wilderness of New York - falling in love, going to parties, and coming to terms with the emerging chaos of AIDS - Martin matures from brilliant student, to apprentice in a Manhattan publishing house, to one of the golden few to be anointed by the highly regarded magazine in which it is every young writer's dream to be published. Yet despite his apparent successes, his emotional and creative desires stubbornly refuse to be satisfied, and his every achievement is haunted by that austere and troubling image of literary perfection, his elusive mentor, Stanley Flint."--BOOK JACKET.

Louise Cooper has been battling cancer for over twenty years. Her growing resentment towards her suburban life and her husband, Nat, compounded by his affair, have left her longing for the life she dreamed of having in her youth. Meanwhile her family are facing other challenges. Her son Danny, a lawyer in San Francisco, has discovered his lover is growing obsessed with online sex, and her daughter, a lesbian protest-singer, announces herself pregnant after performing DIY artificial insemination with everyday kitchen utensils. This is a rich exploration of a family facing inexorable change.

As enchanting and irresistible as Italy itself, these evocative and personal essays by expatriates David Leavitt and Mark Mitchell conjure up the varied delights and delicacies of Italy, where they now live. In alternating essays - published here for the first time - the authors vividly render the joys and surprises of their adopted homeland, including iced cappuccino, umbrella pines, the nuances of language, window shopping, the names and shapes of pasta, boys leaning against a wall, and sidewalk art made of dried flowers. The authors have also interspersed short excerpts from their favorite writers, including Mary McCarthy, D. H. Lawrence, Carlo Levi, and Edith Wharton. Whimsical illustrations by Elvis Swift complement this distinctive and delightful portrait of a country and its culture.

A collection of ten stories which explore the joys and agonies of love and friendship. Each of the stories illuminates a dark corner of human existance. Some are amusing and some are tragic.

"Set against the rise of fascism in 1930s Europe, While England Sleeps tells the story of a love affair between Brian Botsford, an upper-class young writer, and Edward Phelan, an idealistic, self-educated employee of the London Underground and a Communist Party member. Though by far the better educated of the two, Brian is also more callow, convinced that his homosexuality is something he will outgrow. Edward, on the other hand, possesses "an unproblematic capacity to accept" both Brian and the unorthodox nature of their love for each other - until one day, at the urging of his wealthy aunt Constance, Brian agrees to be set up with a "suitable" young woman named Philippa Archibald... and soon enough Edward is pushed to the point of crisis. Fleeing, he volunteers to fight Franco in Spain, where he ends up in prison. And Brian, responsible for Edward's plight, must pursue him across Europe, and into the violent chaos of war."--BOOK JACKET.

David Leavitt's extraordinary first novel, now reissued in paperback, is a seminal work about family, sexual identity, home, and loss. Set in the 1980s against the backdrop of a swiftly gentrifying Manhattan, The Lost Language of Cranes tells the story of twenty-five-year-old Philip, who realizes he must come out to his parents after falling in love for the first time with a man. Philip's parents are facing their own crisis: pressure from developers and the loss of their longtime home. But the real threat to this family is Philip's father's own struggle with his latent homosexuality, realized only in his Sunday afternoon visits to gay porn theaters. Philip's admission to his parents and his father's hidden life provoke changes that forever alter the landscape of their worlds

From Amazon.com: Thirty years ago, David Leavitt first appeared on the literary scene with a gutsy story collection that stunned readers and reviewers. Just twenty-three, he was hailed as a prodigy of sorts: “remarkably gifted” (The Washington Post), with “a genius for empathy” (The New York Times Book Review) and “a knowledge of others’ lives . . . that a writer twice his age might envy” (USA Today). “Regardless of age,” wrote the New York Times, “few writers so effortlessly achieve the sense of maturity and earned compassion so evident in these pages.” In “Territory,” a well-intentioned, liberal mother, presiding over her local Parents of Lesbians and Gays chapter, finds her acceptance of her son’s sexuality shaken when he arrives home with a lover. In the title story, a family extended through divorce and remarriage dances together at the end of a summer party—in the recognition that they are still bound by the very forces that split them apart. Tender and funny, these stories reveal the intricacies and subtleties of the dances in which we all engage.

30 amerikanische und europaische Erzähler auf einen Blick: Generationenvertreter, deren Haltungen zu literarischen Traditionen genauso widersprüchlich und interessant sind wie ihr Erfahrungshunger und ihre Themen es sind. Erzählungen und Romanauszüge von Lisa Alther, Martin Amis, Paul Auster, René Belletto, William Boyd, Françoise Bouillot, Peter Carey, Jean-Claude Charles, Liane Dirks, Jean Echenoz, Deborah Eisenberg, Bret Easton Ellis, Louise Erdrich, Martin Groß, Hervé Guibert, Lisbet Hiide, Christoph Klimke, David Leavitt, Adam Mars-Jones, Susan Minot, Christa Moog, Lorrie Moore, Craig Nova, Marcelo Rubens Paiva, Alina Reyes, Christa Schmidt, Irini Spanidou, Pier Vittorio Tondelli, Christof Wackernagel un Tobias Wolff, die beeindrucken und dem Leser im Kopf bleiben. 30 Autoren unter 40, deren Texte zeigen, daß es sie überall auf der Welt gibt: die Besten von morgen.

From Goodreads: David Leavitt brings the wonders and mysteries of Florence alive, illuminating why it is, and always has been, one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. The third in the critically-acclaimed Writer and the City Series-in which some of the world's finest novelists reveal the secrets of the cities they know best-Florence is a lively account of expatriate life in the 'city of the lily'. Why has Florence always drawn so many English and American visitors? (At the turn of the century, the Anglo-American population numbered more than thirty thousand.) Why have men and women fleeing sex scandals traditionally settled here? What is it about Florence that has made it so fascinating-and so repellent-to artists and writers over the years? Moving fleetly between present and past and exploring characters both real and fictional, Leavitt's narrative limns the history of the foreign colony from its origins in the middle of the nineteenth century until its demise under Mussolini, and considers the appeal of Florence to figures as diverse as Tchaikovsky, E.M. Forster, Ronald Firbank, and Mary McCarthy. Lesser-known episodes in Florentine history-the moving of Michelangelo's David, and the construction of temporary bridges by black American soldiers in the wake of the Second World War-are contrasted with images of Florence today (its vast pizza parlors and tourist culture). Leavitt also examines the city's portrayal in such novels and films as A Room with a View, The Portrait of a Lady and Tea with Mussolini.

There have been several recent anthologies of twentieth-century gay fiction, but Mark Mitchell and David Leavitt's book is the first to explore the texts that circulated before the genre of "gay fiction" came into being, and before greater tolerance allowed writers to treat homosexual themes directly. The result is both an entertaining and a revelatory anthology, and a valuable contribution to our understanding of the literary treatment of homosexuality.

Sometimes, there is nowhere safe to hide. It was a typical evening at a mall outside Portland, Maine. Three teenage friends waited for the movie to start. A boy flirted with the girl selling sunglasses. Mothers and children shopped together, and the manager at the video-game store tending to customers. Then the shooters arrived. The chaos and carnage lasted only eight minutes before the killers were taken down. But for those who lived through it, the effects would last forever. In the years that followed, one would dedicate himself to a law enforcement career. Another would close herself off, trying to bury the memory of huddling in a ladies' room, hopelessly clutching her cell phone--until she finally found a way to pour her emotions into her art. But one person wasn't satisfied with the shockingly high death toll at the DownEast Mall. And as the survivors slowly heal, find shelter, and rebuild, they will discover that another conspirator is lying in wait--and this time, there might be nowhere safe to hide.