num_pages: 344
description: Armistead Maupin, one of America's literary icons, returns after an absence of eight years with the tale of Gabriel Noone, a writer whose late-night radio stories have brought him into the home of millions. Noone is in the midst of a painful separation from his longtime lover when a publisher sends him proofs of a remarkable book: the memoir of an ailing thirteen-year-old boy who suffered horrific abuse at the hands of his parents. Now living with his adoptive mother, Pete Lomax is not only a brave and gifted diarist but also a devoted listener to Noone's show. When Noone phones the boy to offer encouragement, it soon becomes clear that Pete sees in this heartsick middle-aged storyteller the loving father he has always wanted. Thus begins an extraordinary friendship that only grows deeper as the boy's health deteriorates, freeing Noone to unlock his innermost feelings.Then, out of the blue, troubling questions arise, exploding Noone's comfortable assumptions and causing his ordered existence to spin wildly out of control. As he walks a vertiginous line between truth and illusions, he is finally forced to confront all of his relationships--familial, romantic, and erotic.Few novelists in America write with such unerring insight and honesty in mapping the territory of the human heart. And in The Night Listener, Armistead Maupin has given us his most ambitious and daringly imaginative work. As complex and hypnotically engrossing as the best of mysteries, it will move and challenge his readers as never before. 
language: English
title: The Night Listener
titlecomplete: The Night Listener
genres: Fiction, Mystery, Queer, LGBT, Thriller, Gay Fiction, Novels, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Gay
ratings_count: 5635
awards: awardedAt: 978336000000
name: Stonewall Book Award
category: Literature
publisher: HarperCollins