University of Wisconsin Press, 2007 Paper: 978-0-299-21344-2 | eISBN: 978-0-299-21343-5 | Cloth: 978-0-299-21340-4 Library of Congress Classification PS3606.R566S48 2005 Dewey Decimal Classification 813.6
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Setting the Lawn on Fire, the first novel by critically acclaimed writer Mack Friedman, trails its narrator through his obsessions with sex, drugs, art, and poison. Ivan, a young Jewish boy from Milwaukee, embarks on a journey of sexual discovery that leads him from Wisconsin to Alaska, Philadelphia, and Mexico through stints as a fishery worker, artist, and finally a hustler who learns to provide the blank canvas for other people’s dreams. The result is a new kind of coming-of-age story that sees passion from every angle because its protagonist is every kind of lover: the seducer and the seduced, the pornographer and the model, the hunter and the prey, the trick and the john. In the end, Setting the Lawn on Fire is also something rare—a fully realized, contemporary romance that illuminates the power of desire and the rituals of the body, the brain, and the heart that attempt to contain our passions.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Mack Friedman is the author of Strapped for Cash: A History of American Hustler Culture. His essays have been featured at the Center for Exploratory and Perceptual Art and the Leslie-Lohman Gallery, and his performance art has been showcased at the Andy Warhol Museum. His stories have appeared in the anthologies Obsessed, Wonderlands, and Barnstorm. This is his first novel.
REVIEWS
“Brilliant . . . A tribute to the power of a first-class imagination to rethink what has become a venerable genre—the coming out novel. . . . The best gay debut novel I've read in quite a long time."—Edmund White, Out
“We meet Friedman's character in the chaotic impulses of early childhood, watch him gallop through the frustrated yearnings of adolescence and early manhood, and see him sacrificed to lust, adventure, and the market for sex. . . . Friedman has discovered the magic link between libido and humanity, arousal and our taste for living, and he shares this with us elegantly, never losing his honesty, humility, and respect for others.”—Bruce Benderson, author of User and The Romanian
“Friedman is no less afraid of writing about raw emotion than he is of writing about lust and sexual commerce. The result is an imaginative portrait of loneliness as powerful and disturbing as any you’re likely to read.”—Yale Review
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Acknowledgments
1 Kerosene
2 Orange Crush
3 Love Maps
4 The Salmon Capital of the World
5 Locker Room Chronicles
6 Prisoners of War
7 100 Ways to Kill Yourself
8 The Mayor of Nowhere
9 Poisoning Young Minds
10 Fugitive Emissions
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
University of Wisconsin Press, 2007 Paper: 978-0-299-21344-2 eISBN: 978-0-299-21343-5 Cloth: 978-0-299-21340-4
Setting the Lawn on Fire, the first novel by critically acclaimed writer Mack Friedman, trails its narrator through his obsessions with sex, drugs, art, and poison. Ivan, a young Jewish boy from Milwaukee, embarks on a journey of sexual discovery that leads him from Wisconsin to Alaska, Philadelphia, and Mexico through stints as a fishery worker, artist, and finally a hustler who learns to provide the blank canvas for other people’s dreams. The result is a new kind of coming-of-age story that sees passion from every angle because its protagonist is every kind of lover: the seducer and the seduced, the pornographer and the model, the hunter and the prey, the trick and the john. In the end, Setting the Lawn on Fire is also something rare—a fully realized, contemporary romance that illuminates the power of desire and the rituals of the body, the brain, and the heart that attempt to contain our passions.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Mack Friedman is the author of Strapped for Cash: A History of American Hustler Culture. His essays have been featured at the Center for Exploratory and Perceptual Art and the Leslie-Lohman Gallery, and his performance art has been showcased at the Andy Warhol Museum. His stories have appeared in the anthologies Obsessed, Wonderlands, and Barnstorm. This is his first novel.
REVIEWS
“Brilliant . . . A tribute to the power of a first-class imagination to rethink what has become a venerable genre—the coming out novel. . . . The best gay debut novel I've read in quite a long time."—Edmund White, Out
“We meet Friedman's character in the chaotic impulses of early childhood, watch him gallop through the frustrated yearnings of adolescence and early manhood, and see him sacrificed to lust, adventure, and the market for sex. . . . Friedman has discovered the magic link between libido and humanity, arousal and our taste for living, and he shares this with us elegantly, never losing his honesty, humility, and respect for others.”—Bruce Benderson, author of User and The Romanian
“Friedman is no less afraid of writing about raw emotion than he is of writing about lust and sexual commerce. The result is an imaginative portrait of loneliness as powerful and disturbing as any you’re likely to read.”—Yale Review
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Acknowledgments
1 Kerosene
2 Orange Crush
3 Love Maps
4 The Salmon Capital of the World
5 Locker Room Chronicles
6 Prisoners of War
7 100 Ways to Kill Yourself
8 The Mayor of Nowhere
9 Poisoning Young Minds
10 Fugitive Emissions
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE