BOOK DETAILS
Trade paper ISBN-13: 978-1939140135 List Price: $16.99 U.S. Pages: 140 Published: 2013 |
Aubade (1957)
Kenneth Martin With an introduction by the author Book Description
Paul Anderson has just finished school and is spending his last summer at home before he starts university in the autumn. He can hardly wait to escape his ineffectual father and domineering mother, and a long summer spent with nothing to do but work in old Mr. Swallow's store, which never seems to have any customers, is beginning to look dull and interminable. But one day Gary, a young medical student, enters the store, and Paul's life changes forever. He has been brought up to believe that it's wrong, but he can't help it: he's falling in love with Gary. And all of a sudden, the summer becomes a time Paul will never forget. . . . Written when Kenneth Martin was only sixteen, Aubade (1957) remains a moving and honest portrayal of a young man's first love. Long recognized as a classic of gay fiction, returns to print in this new edition, which includes an introduction by the author discussing the experience of writing and publishing Aubade as a teenager and the reactions to its initial publication. Martin's second novel, Waiting for the Sky to Fall (1959), is also available from Valancourt Books. |
reviews
“Not many books by anyone so young are worth publishing, but this one was.” – John Betjeman
“A very good first novel written with fine economy, intelligent and extremely moving.” – Angus Wilson
“Remarkably assured and well worth your attention.” – Evening Standard
“Resolves the mixed and complex emotions of adolescence into the timeless purity of art. Most books about such years come from the pressure of emotional maturity: Kenneth Martin writes from the very heart of them.” – Elizabeth Bowen
“It has beauty and is an astonishingly mature performance, not only in its insight, but in its restraint.” – Glasgow Herald
“A very good first novel written with fine economy, intelligent and extremely moving.” – Angus Wilson
“Remarkably assured and well worth your attention.” – Evening Standard
“Resolves the mixed and complex emotions of adolescence into the timeless purity of art. Most books about such years come from the pressure of emotional maturity: Kenneth Martin writes from the very heart of them.” – Elizabeth Bowen
“It has beauty and is an astonishingly mature performance, not only in its insight, but in its restraint.” – Glasgow Herald
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Kenneth Martin was born in Belfast in 1939. He grew up in Bangor, Co. Down, where he was adopted into a poor family. He began work on his first novel, Aubade, at the age of sixteen, and when it was accepted for publication by Chapman and Hall with an advance of £100, he moved to London. Aubade, published the day after Martin turned eighteen in 1957, was a modest success, selling well enough to run into a second printing in 1958 and was also published in America. Martin followed his debut with two more novels, Waiting for the Sky to Fall (1959) and A Matter of Time (1960), but the reviews of these novels were largely disappointing, and Martin turned from fiction to journalism. He moved to the United States in 1970 and earned degrees from Columbia University, the University of Minnesota, and San Francisco State University. In 1977 he became an American citizen. He returned to fiction writing in 1989, publishing Billy’s Brother with Gay Men’s Press, which also reissued Aubade as part of its Gay Modern Classics series. A fifth novel, The Tin Islands, followed in 1996. Kenneth Martin lives and works as a psychotherapist in San Francisco.