This is a character-driven novel about a small middle-class New York family - mother, father and son - where the son and dad are both gay. The son has been on the gay scene for some time but isn't out to his family yet, while the dad is a decades-long closet case. Since this is a novel about family breakdown and communication problems set against a backdrop of AIDS it's not the jolliest of novels, especially if you're not really into graphic little titbits about vivisection and child abuse. But the characterization is good and things move along quite nicely even though it's hardly action-packed. The character of Jerene is the only real weak spot in this area - she's a black lesbian estranged from her upwardly mobile family, and although her intersectional nightmare is treated very sympathetically and insightfully by Leavitt, he seems so eager to pile on her woes that at times her character seems dwarfed by her problems. The mother, Rose, despite being the only overtly homophobic main character, was the most complex, interesting character for me, and despite Jerene's troubles the lives of all the gay characters are shown in a nuanced way, without piling on tragedy. And although AIDS is constantly at the back of their thoughts, nobody actually dies of it in the book, which is quite something for this kind of novel!

I was disappointed that Jerene's PhD subject - "lost" languages such as those invented by pairs of twins etc. - was not dealt with more, and there are very few cranes (the industrial machine, not the bird. If you're looking for birds you'll be even more disappointed). I'm not going to be falling over myself to read any more Leavitt simply because I tend to prefer novels where there are believable characters AND action of some sort, but if you like novels like Jay McInerney's "Brightness Falls" you should check this out.