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Andrew Holleran: Grief (2006, Hyperion) 5 stars

Reeling from the recent death of his invalid mother, a worn, jaded professor comes to …

Review of 'Grief' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

 Maybe some smart people already know, but I wonder when books and movies by and/or about homosexuals stopped being of a genre and appealed to everyone. It was probably incremental. The 1993 movie "Philadelphia" might have been a milestone.
 [a:Andrew Holleran|136007|Andrew Holleran|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1329337078p2/136007.jpg]'s 2006 [b:Grief|251520|Grief|Andrew Holleran|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1436326724l/251520.SY75.jpg|243729] is so beautifully written that it would be a shame if it were ever read only by a gay audience. The review excerpt in the front pages that describes it best to me is "A book to savor." If you read it, read it slowly. (It's only 150 pages long.)
 It might be especially appealing if you have any interest in Washington, D.C., or Abraham Lincoln.
 Excerpt:

 Of course, museums are morgues—tombs containing art. Their sepulchral quality was part of their appeal—the dim light, the silence, the tourists wandering through them like ghosts. It was hard to decide which museum resembled a morgue most—the Sackler, which is underground, like a cave in which a Mongol raiding party had hidden its treasure, or the Freeer, which felt like the villa of a rich man who has gone abroad and died. The National Archives had the same cold light as the Tomb of Napoleon, and the National Gallery made you feel, when you entered the echoing rotunda, and walked between its dark marble pillars, you were entering the palace of Pluto. They all removed you from the world though they ejected you back into it at five o'clock, when I would take a slow walk back down the Mall, past the touch football games office staffs played on the Ellipse, darting across the grass with flushed excited faces.

5:20