Book Review: The Kingdom of Sand

(Bought at the Time and Space Limited Store, Hudson, NY) Andrew Holleran's melancholy, well-written novel doesn't have much of a plot. We follow the nameless narrator, a lonely single gay man in his 60s, as he drives around the tiny North Florida town he returned to in order to care for his aging parents and can't seem to leave after they have died. The protagonist came of age when gays had no models of family, romance and marriage, so his intimate encounters with other men are held on the fringes of public places like the ramp of a boat dock after dark, video booths at an X-rated bookstore, or in restrooms. We never learn about his work life apart from NYC temp jobs after college and doing research for a writer in Washington DC. But he seems to have enough money to be comfortably retired. 

The bulk of the novel is taken up with the narrator's relationship with one of his few local friends, Earl, a much older gay man. Both are alone, without lovers, watching DVDs of classic Hollywood films, listening to classical records and facing their solitary mortality. Holleran's descriptions bring both characters to vivid life even though not much happens. I like the last chapter best "Two Loves Have I at Walgreen's" where the narrator details his elaborate plans to visit the titular chain drugstore just as it's about to close so he can have some private time with an attractive boyish clerk with Bette Davis eyes and a pharmacist who resembles Edgar Allen Poe. 

It's a very sad novel. As noted there seems to be no history of love for the protagonist. Holleran evokes the lives of the narrator and Earl through telling details and metaphors. The story asks the vital question, what will we leave behind and how do gay lives fit into the larger society. Holleran paints a depressing picture, but the narrator seems to have few regrets and never expresses sorrow for his lack of deep connections with his sister or her children or never having a sustained intimate relationship with another man. Gay men and women now have more options to be open and not be ashamed of their found families. One of the most telling details occurs when the narrator and Earl hesitate watching the silent German film Different From the Others about a gay man subject to blackmail because Earl's handyman is present, fixing them dinner. They're worried what the straight man would think, when it's probably obvious the handyman knows both friends are gay and he couldn't care less. That was the saddest part of the whole book for me.