There are etchings of trumpeting elephants at the head of each
chapter of THE NIGHT LISTENER, little elephants that seem in a
strange way to serve as grandmasters for a parade of plot that
follows in the ensuing pages. For THE NIGHT LISTENER is a novel not
unlike a three-ring circus with perhaps too much going at one time
for the reader to ever truly rest his eyes on one story line.

The ringleader of the book is our protagonist, Gabriel Noone,
successful, public radio-syndicated storyteller and host of "Noone
at Night." Noone is a highly likable character, once you grow
accustomed to his flaws; an irascible, moody, infinitely proud, yet
infinitely self-doubting middle-aged man whose life has become this
vaulting mayhem of strange new events. In the first ring, we watch
Gabriel cope with his separation from his longtime partner Jess. It
is a painful breakup to witness: Jess is emboldened by his recent
successful drug treatment against the AIDS virus; his battle over
death has made him want to take more risks than a relationship with
Gabriel. Gabriel, on the other hand, seems almost entirely
incapable of functioning without Jess, and now feels himself a
widower without him, a widower with a husband who is not
dead.

The story of Gabriel and Jess is enough to take up a novel of its
own but is by no means the central event in this book. Ring two is
truly the focus of THE NIGHT LISTENER, and the stage where we watch
Gabriel face an often dark and enigmatic beast. One day Gabriel
decides to read one of the myriad bound galleys sent to him by
publishers desperate for blurbs; it is a memoir called THE BLACKING
FACTORY, written by a 12-year-old boy named Pete Lomax.

Young Lomax is possessed of such incredible literary genius that
Gabriel cannot put the book down, despite the horrific tale it
tells of the author's physical, sexual and emotional abuse at the
hands of his own parents. The details of this abuse are shocking,
but worse still is the fact that Pete has been given AIDS by one of
his violators. It is a tale so dark it is almost a little hard to
believe...and that is precisely Maupin's intent.

Pete claims in his book that the only thing that kept him going
through all the trials of his childhood was a late-night radio
program hosted by none other than Gabriel Noone. Here, precisely
when Gabriel is feeling most vulnerable and unloved, comes his
biggest fan and an opportunity for Gabriel to feel wanted, needed
and adored once again. What ensues is, again, a rather painful
spectacle to watch: Gabriel gets in touch with Pete Lomax and the
two develop an almost-too-immediate father and son bond, all
completely created over the telephone. Pete's protective foster
mother Donna (whose voice on the phone is suspiciously childlike,
high-pitched and reminiscent of her son's) refuses to reveal to
Gabriel where the two are living. And so begins a series of daily
phone calls between "Dad" Gabriel and the terribly ill Pete, with
Gabriel becoming ever-more attached to the young wastrel he
imagines on the other end of the line. The action in this ring
culminates with Gabriel venturing out to Middle America to find his
newfound son; and what he finds instead only serves to deflate his
hopes of heroic status.

Gabriel's mysterious relationship with his young "night listener"
is thrown into interesting relief when compared to his awkward
relationship with his own father, the octogenarian Gabriel Noone,
Sr. A man from a time gone by would be perhaps a kind phrase to
describe the elder Noone. He is a foul-mouthed bigot who
embarrasses Gabriel in restaurants with lewd racial slurs. Even
more painful, though, is that he never acknowledged his son's
marriage to Jess and never truly accepted Gabriel's homosexuality.
Yet despite the gross divide between father and son, there really
is something terribly similar about the two men, as their shared
name so clearly suggests. The scenes between the two Gabriels have
the makings for very interesting literature, but somehow it seems
that Maupin drops the ball a bit. Tension between the two men gives
way to platitudes and tired dialogue where instead there could be
the most authentic, human moments in THE NIGHT LISTENER. Sadly,
there is simply too much else going on in the novel for Maupin to
keep all three rings running smoothly.

THE NIGHT LISTENER offers the same singular wit and clever writing
that Maupin fans have come to expect from the author of TALES OF
THE CITY. The characters are vibrant here; the mystery of Pete
Lomax rather intriguing. And as for the elephants, well, when you
read this "big top" of a novel, you'll learn their charming
story.