Landscape : memory /

Amid the rubble of San Francisco's 1906 earthquake, Max Kosegarten, the narrator of this lyrical first novel, becomes the inseparable boyhood friend of Duncan Taqdir, son of a Persian sculptor and an English archeologist. Set mainly in 1914-1916 and told in diary-like entries interspersed with 36 brooding illustrations by the author, the story follows the boys as they become lovers, ultimately separated by college and a tragic accident. Together they explore California's woods, beaches and mountains, and search for evidence of the earthquake that brought them together. Their excavations as well as Max's reading of Ruskin and Cicero, point to this sensitive novel's motif: how memory accretes into character and shapes perception. Another theme is a teen's acceptance of his homosexuality. Max's perky, self-absorbed mother, who is having an affair with Duncan's father, is sharply drawn. Letters from Max's uncle, serving on a hellish front in WW I, add period flavor. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

An intelligent first novel--presented as a homoerotic teen-ager's diary/sketchbook--that captures the mood of San Francisco circa 1915 in lyrical, precious prose. Stadler pulls off a stunning trick here, beguiling us with Maxwell, the narrator, his thoroughly modern mother and father, and the charms of San Francisco during its second flowering--the golden years between the 1906 earthquake and the sobering up caused by WW I. Period description and boyish enthusiasm flavor the writing as Max explores the Pacific Exposition with best friend Duncan, son of a Persian sculptor. Heartbreak comes early, though, when Max's father goes across the Bay to Bolinas to pursue his bird-watching. After that, events and foreshadowings overload the novel's collage-like structure: There's Max's struggle against schizophrenia, which leads to his obsession with memory and landscape; his blossoming idyll with Duncan; and, in counterpoint, letters from Max's uncle, a surgeon coping with the carnage at the front lines of the Great War. It would take a heroic juggling act by Stadler to preserve the integrity of this novel against so many Big Themes; the characters also suffer a disappointing tendency to lapse into 1980's-style ""relationship-speak."" But the main flaw becomes apparent only after the tragedy that we know has been coming: Duncan's death by drowning. The collage technique that attempts to make major connections through artifacts such as song lyrics, poems, letters, and, especially, its 36 illustrations fails to give us any fully drawn characters except for Max. We can't properly mourn the Persian boy, Duncan, who has little to do except function as a kind of beefcake pinup. Flawed though it is by draughts of narcissim and nostalgia, this nonetheless deserves to be saluted for the ambition of its themes and the author's lyricism. A Separate Peace for another time and place. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.