Edmund White summarizes this quasi-novel best in his first-edition dustjacket blurb: "These are elegant, nightmarish variations on two compressed, mordant themes: love in the time of AIDS and the eternally fragile politics of domestic desire." I quote White here because with this novel, twenty-five year old Dale Peck proved he is White's equal in the first rank of gay writers. A characteristic of both writers is their complexity, indeed difficulty, but this does nit distract from the reading. In "Martin and John," Peck presents a series of stories using the same character names, but not the same characters, each illuminating the main narration which is told in italics. I at first struggled to connect these stories and failed, then I realized their linkage is not in plot, but in variation. Each separately tells of "homophobia, violence, incest, and the anguish of dying an early death" and rising above all that, gay desire. Considered in total, the effect is overwhelming. "Martin and John" will be added to my short list of books to re-read. Dale Peck went on to build quite a different reputation than this novel portended as a literary critic. Still, I'm curious how his talent evolved in his subsequent novels.
Martin and John is one of the more confusing books I have read. Though the character development was lovely and completely complex, I could not understand what was happening at some points and where the story was going and it slowly became less and less formatted; quotation marks were used on and off throughout the book to indicate speech. I enjoyed the characters, Martin and John, yet I don't know what happened to who. Someone's mother died and had a father who was emotionally damaged afterwards and some one had an affair with their mother's boyfriend in their early teens. Everything was everywhere and it was hard to tell what was connected to what. I felt that parts of the story were started yet never finished. The end of the story was just as much of a dead end as the rest of the book. Was it an ending? As the reader, I did not even know what the plot of the story was. Someone had AIDS (Martin, I know this) but did John get it? Who was the main character? I could not tell.Star Line Up: 2 stars-1: Confusing plot.-1: Where was the ending?-1: All the dead ends in the book.+1: John's depression+1: That feeling after Martin was gone.
What do You think about Martin And John (2006)?
A beautifully written but confusing book. What's more, the back cover explanation of the narrative makes no sense. At first, one believes the narrative, which begins with John, is straightforward. Because it is. But then Martin is introduced and the John details don't mesh. And then all the Martins and Johns are different. Well okay. The back cover does mention permutations, but also claimed alternating narratives. I could detect no recurring narratives, only permutations of characters names Martin, John, Susan, Henry, etc.The strength of the work is found in the clarity and beauty of each of the set pieces. Unfortunately, for me, all the beautiful set pieces did not resonate into a complete symphony.
—George Ilsley
It's true, the literature that came out of the epidemic — Our Holocaust, as one older gay jewish friend described the dark years of the 1980s and 90s to me the other day — is so singularly unmatched in depth, intensity and emotional dimension. It's hard to find writing which captures so well the suffering and also the surviving of so many, as the AIDS literature from that era. Dale Peck and this first novel is firmly in that league. It's a classic I could read over and over again, and continue to walk away with something fresh. Something I hadn't seen before. "Martin and John" offers — to borrow Peck's words — more than understanding. Empathy.
—Skip
I'm still recovering from this book. The ruthless images, shocking scenarios and dysfunctional relationships engulf the reader in an ocean of emotions. Desolation, decay, violence seem to ooze from every page so while I initially tried to make sense of the stories and tried to see how they fit together, I completely stopped trying to stitch together the disparate tales and began to experience the anguish of Martin and John because they are the same everywhere. Meeting, loving and suffering; never quite able to hold on to happiness or even sanity.This is an utterly beautiful book that may well drag you into depression or make you thankful that you living in a slightly less oppressive age.
—Jacob
