By: David Leavitt

"[A] slight, ruminative book, too short for its scope....Leavitt writes sweetly, as usual, while flitting all over the map in his effort to deal with all of his characters equally. It's a mistake: 'The Page Turner' is too thin to carry the weight of so many sadder-but-wiser souls."

"Leavitt's new novel, 'The Page Turner,' represents something of a rediscovery of the methods and ambitions of 'Family Dancing.' It is by no means a perfect novel--it is flawed by some hasty characterizations and a reluctance to probe too deeply into its people's pasts--but it's still a marked improvement over Leavitt's more disappointing recent work....Indeed, it intermittently shimmers with the magical talent that first announced itself a decade and a half ago....[H]e does a nuanced job here, reminiscent of 'Equal Affections,' of delineating the complicated bonds of love, resentment, mistrust and affection that can connect a mother and her son."

Leavitt, in his first novel since the controversial While England Sleeps (Houghton, 1995), proves once again that he can accomplish much through his clean, spare narrative style. A master at creating the internal dither we experience when we misunderstand our surroundings, Leavitt relies on irony to explore the world of mismatched characters as they attempt to create, but mostly ruin, relationships. Paul Porterfield is the title character, an 18-year-old would-be pianist who is called upon to turn pages for his musical idol, the fortysomething Richard Kennington. They fall in love a few months later. Add to this mix Paul's mother, who also falls for Kennington, and Kennington's much older male lover of more than 20 years. Mistrust, abandonment, and betrayal abound, and each character knows all too well what those things are. But the hope for love is plentiful, and that is the substance of the novel. With each turn of the page, we uncover the mystery of love in the characters' lives as they experience it. Highly recommended for all fiction collections. Roger W. Durbin, Univ. of Akron Libs., Ohio

This flat novel of music, ambition and love is unfortunately not the enticing work-in-progress by the fictional "David Leavitt" in the far more accomplished and entertaining novella "The Term Paper Artist" (from the collection Arkansas). Eighteen-year-old Paul Porterfield hopes for a career as a classical pianist and is thrilled to achieve his "debut" turning pages for his idol, the vaguely van Cliburn-esque Richard Kennington. This would be the only intersection of their careers were it not for a coincidental encounter later that summer in Rome, where Paul and his philistine mother, Pamela, are on vacation. Mutually infatuated, Paul and Kennington carry on an affair unbeknownst to Pamela (who develops her own crush on Kennington). Kennington abruptly leaves because of an emotional crisis at home in New York (the beloved dachshund of his longtime manager and lover dies), but the summer fling spoils in Manhattan, as Paul (now at Julliard) faces his lack of talent and Kennington cracks under the middle-aged pressures of being a former child prodigy. Neither character's sketchy story, however, has much emotional weight. Only Pamela, one of Leavitt's characteristically strong maternal figures, transcends her stereotype. Her farcically frustrated ambitions barely keep up the tempo in this dubiously titled orchestration of tired themes. Author tour. (Apr.) FYI: Arkansas will be reissued simultaneously in Mariner paperback.

"Paul! Let me fix your tie!"

At eighteen, Paul Porterfield's dream is to play the piano at the world's great concert halls, yet so far the closest he has come has been turning pages for his idol, Richard Kennington, a former piano prodigy on the cusp of middle age. Then, on vacation in Rome with his mother, Pamela, Paul encounters Kennington a second time. A love affair begins between the two - one that is complicated when Pamela misconstrues Kennington's attention toward her son as a sign of interest in her. Alarmed by the situation, Kennington flees Rome for New York, where Joseph Mansourian, his manager (and lover) of twenty-five years, awaits him; Paul, too, goes to New York to study at Juilliard. They do not see each other. Yet the brief affair will affect their lives in ways that neither could have predicted. "Why can't people have what they want?" It is around this question that David Leavitt's new novel so movingly pivots. By turns comic and heartbreaking, shrewd and intimate, The Page Turner testifies not only to the tenacity of the human spirit but to the resiliency of the human heart.

At eighteen, Paul Porterfield dreams of playing piano at the world's great concert halls, yet so far the closest he has come has been page-turning for his idol, Richard Kennington, a former piano prodigy on the cusp of middle age. Then, on vacation in Rome with his mother, Pamela, Paul encounters Kennington a second time. A love affair begins between the two - one that is complicated when Pamela misconstrues Kennington's attention toward her son as a sign of interest in her. Alarmed by the situation, Kennington flees Rome for New York, where Joseph Mansourian, his long-time manager (and lover), awaits him; Paul, too, goes to New York to study at Juilliard. They do not see each other. Yet the brief affair will affect their lives in ways that neither could have predicted. "Why can't people have what they want?" It is around this question that David Leavitt's new novel pivots.