The Lost Language of Cranes

Set in the 1980s against the backdrop of a swiftly gentrifying Manhattan, The Lost Language of Cranes tells the story of twenty-five-year-old Philip Benjamin, who realizes he must come out to his parents after falling in love for the first time with a man. Philip's parents are facing their own problems: pressure from developers and the loss of their longtime home. But the real threat to the family is Philip's father's own struggle with his suppressed homosexuality, realized only in Sunday afternoon visits to gay porn theaters. Philip's revelation to his parents leads his father to a point of crisis and provokes changes that forever alter the landscape of the family's lives.

David Leavitt's fiction includes the collection Family Dancing and the novels While England Sleeps, The Body of Jonah Boyd, The Indian Clerk (finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), and The Two Hotel Francforts. He is also the author of two nonfiction works, The Man Who Knew Too Much and Florence, A Delicate Case. He is professor of English at the University of Florida in Gainesville, and edits the literary magazine Subtropics. www.davidleavittwriter.com