The Kingdom of Sand

[Holleran's] new novel is all the more affecting and engaging because the images of isolation and old age here are haunted . . . in 1978 Holleran wrote the quintessential novel about gay abandon, the sheer, careless pleasure of it: Dancer From the Dance. Now, at almost 80 years of age, he has produced a novel remarkable for its integrity, for its readiness to embrace difficult truths and for its complex way of paying homage to the passing of time -- Colm Tóibín * New York Times *
Bracingly honest and wise... A beautiful way to describe how we fade away. * The Times, *Books of the Year* *
Holleran's fifth novel - both melancholy and hilarious - finds the protagonist living out his days in his late mother's Florida home, navigating loneliness, a changing world and a life post-cruising. The book's image of isolation and old age is all the more haunting because in 1978 Holleran wrote the quintessential novel about the sheer, careless pleasure of gay abandon, Dancer From the Dance. * New York Times *
[With] grim wit and flashes of sanctity from above... Holleran's writing is as calmly compelling as the repetitive tasks that occupy a monastic day. * Observer *
Holleran renders an elegiac and very funny contemplation of not just ageing but an age... A wistful, witty meditation on a gay man's twilight years and the twilight of America. -- Jeremy Atherton Lin * Guardian *
[Holleran's] new novel is all the more affecting and engaging because the images of isolation and old age here are haunted . . . in 1978 Holleran wrote the quintessential novel about gay abandon, the sheer, careless pleasure of it: Dancer From the Dance. Now, at almost 80 years of age, he has produced a novel remarkable for its integrity, for its readiness to embrace difficult truths and for its complex way of paying homage to the passing of time -- Colm Tóibín * New York Times *
Bracingly honest and wise... A beautiful way to describe how we fade away. * The Times, *Books of the Year* *
Holleran's fifth novel - both melancholy and hilarious - finds the protagonist living out his days in his late mother's Florida home, navigating loneliness, a changing world and a life post-cruising. The book's image of isolation and old age is all the more haunting because in 1978 Holleran wrote the quintessential novel about the sheer, careless pleasure of gay abandon, Dancer From the Dance. * New York Times *
[With] grim wit and flashes of sanctity from above... Holleran's writing is as calmly compelling as the repetitive tasks that occupy a monastic day. * Observer *
Holleran renders an elegiac and very funny contemplation of not just ageing but an age... A wistful, witty meditation on a gay man's twilight years and the twilight of America. -- Jeremy Atherton Lin * Guardian *