Armistead Maupin is a dreamy middle-aged queer from the Carolinas, and a mesmerizing storyteller. His characters never fail to seduce me --quirky, picturesque, happily-ever-after versions of men and women I have known and loved over a couple of decades in the San Francisco Bay Area. An unabashed roman � clef, The Night Listener explores the heartbroken borderland where art, imagination, pain, and ego are all in a tangle. It is a poignant tale about family and friendship, identity and abuse, endings and transformations.

Havi Hoffman