Arkansas - Tapa dura

Perfect (Philip Hensher, MAIL ON SUNDAY)

Funny and sexy (TIME OUT)

A literary triumph (INDEPENDENT)

David Leavitt's reputation has rested upon stories and novels that explicate a sedate, upper-middle class world of reserved emotions and sexuality. In his new collection of three novellas Arkansas, he explores new territory. Droll, surprising, and very s (AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW)

In 'Saturn Street' a disaffected screenwriter in Los Angeles volunteers to deliver lunches to homebound AIDS patients and falls in love with one of his clients. In 'The Wooden Anniversary', Nathan and Celia - characters familiar to readers of Leavitt's short story collections - reunite awkwardly, at the cooking school Celia runs in Tuscany, after a five-year separation. And in 'The Term Paper Artist', a writer named David Leavitt, hiding out at his father's house in the aftermath of a publishing scandal, experiences literary rejuvenation when he agrees to write term papers for UCLA undergraduates in exchange for sex. Comical, lyrical and speculative, in these three powerful and innovative novellas, David Leavitt explores the themes of escape, exile and homecoming.