Evan is a bright student who has been accepted into Princeton, Stanford, Swarthmore, and Michigan. But instead he moves in with William, who works at the local TC station, as his lover. It’s not very clear why, except that he likes the sex. (Doesn’t Evan think that he’ll be able to get gay sex in college?) Evan’s family is shocked, but they hardly talked to each other before anyway. The relationship between Evan and William soon becomes stale, but Evan remains in the house, brooding about the past and worrying his life, occasionally meeting friends, but becoming increasingly isolated.

Eventually Evan leaves, and goes to stay with his brother Peter who runs a motel with a 55-acre property for holiday-makers in Florida. Life becomes better for Evan, but he doesn’t really manage to connect with Peter. Instead, he becomes involved with Hector, who also works at the hotel, and may be Peter’s lover. It’s a messy relationship, and again Evan does a lot of worrying. Indeed, everyone Evan knows seems to be having a hard time.

Ultimately Evan returns to his home town and seems to have learned from his experience; he is noticeably more mature. He settles down in his own career and becomes less dependent on others for his emotional well-being. His parents have separated, and his former lover William has tested positive for HIV. Evan lives with sadness and the fear that his is also infected. Yet he is also strong and it is only at this stage in his life that he is able to have a real emotional connection with a lover.

This is a fairly long novel at 372 pages, and the long stretches of hopeless relationships going nowhere grow tiresome. Author Paul Lisicky manages to convey a powerful eroticism at points, but those moments are overshadowed by Evan’s immaturity. Evan narrates his own story, but he doesn’t really understand what is going on much of the time, and so he’s not an insightful commentator on his own life. Once he does start to attain some wisdom, Lisicky rushes through the events of Evan’s life, as if he were running out of space.

Lawnboy is about the relationships of gay men living in the shadow of AIDS, dealing with homophobia, and living with fragmented families. But it is not about gay communities, and it’s hardly about a universal gay experience. In some ways, it’s an impressive novel because of its persistence in detailing Evan’s confusion about other people’s motives, but he’s not a charasmatic protagonist. You’ll be glad that he starts to sort out his life by the end of the novel, but you’ll also be glad that you are done with reading it.

Categories: Fiction