Beijing

副标题: A Novel

ISBN: 9780299184902

出版社: University of Wisconsin Press

出版年: 2003-4-10

页数: 312

定价: USD 26.95

装帧: Hardcover

内容简介

Relax, I told myself. You're having an adventure. Escaping his ghosts, AIDS widower David Masiello accepts a one-year position at a Western medical clinic in Beijing. Lonely but excited, he sets out to explore the city--both its bustling street life and its clandestine gay subculture. David chronicles his adventures in China as he wrestles with cultural dislocation, loneliness, and sexual and spiritual longing. After a series of both comic and poignant encounters with gay Chinese men, he meets Bosheng, a handsome young artist. Though the attraction is strong, a difficult courtship ensues, during which Bosheng returns to his ancestral village to marry the girl his parents have chosen for him. Eventually, and quite unexpectedly, David and Bosheng reconnect and share an idyllic spring together. As the year ends, David must decide whether to say goodbye or face the uncertainties of along-distance relationship. Philip Gambone's novel is peopled with a host of wonderfully memorable characters: Owen, David's forthright best friend back home; Auntie Chen, the clinic's office mom, who wants to fix David up with a girlfriend; Stewart, David's Beijing roommate, a graduate student doing research on Peking opera; Jiantao and Guoyang, two lovers who lecture David on the fleeting quality of American romance; and Tyson, the Australian doctor with a Chinese girlfriend, who hopes to teach David that love doesn't need any explanations or justifications.