The Kingdom of Sand
Select a format:
Retailers:
Summary
'Affecting and engaging' COLM TÓIBÍN
'A wistful, witty meditation on a gay man's twilight years and the twilight of America' Guardian
Out in the drought-struck backwaters of rural Florida, The Kingdom of Sand's nameless narrator lives a life of semi-solitude, enjoying the odd, fleeting sexual encounter and the friendship of a few.
His world is ageing, and the memories of another time flash, then fade - visions of parties filled with handsome young men, the parents whom he chose to spend his life besides, the generation he once knew, struck down by AIDS. But, when forced to watch the slow demise of a close neighbour, he is drawn back to the here and now, and his own borrowed time in this kingdom of sand.
'Bracingly honest and wise' The Times, Books of the Year
'Both melancholy and hilarious' New York Times
'A wistful, witty meditation on a gay man's twilight years and the twilight of America' Guardian
Out in the drought-struck backwaters of rural Florida, The Kingdom of Sand's nameless narrator lives a life of semi-solitude, enjoying the odd, fleeting sexual encounter and the friendship of a few.
His world is ageing, and the memories of another time flash, then fade - visions of parties filled with handsome young men, the parents whom he chose to spend his life besides, the generation he once knew, struck down by AIDS. But, when forced to watch the slow demise of a close neighbour, he is drawn back to the here and now, and his own borrowed time in this kingdom of sand.
'Bracingly honest and wise' The Times, Books of the Year
'Both melancholy and hilarious' New York Times
Reviews
[Holleran's] new novel is all the more affecting and engaging because the images of isolation and old age here are haunted . . . in 1978 Holleran wrote the quintessential novel about gay abandon, the sheer, careless pleasure of it: Dancer From the Dance. Now, at almost 80 years of age, he has produced a novel remarkable for its integrity, for its readiness to embrace difficult truths and for its complex way of paying homage to the passing of time
Colm Tóibín, New York Times