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Amazon Review
Allan Stein spent an enchanted childhood hovering at the elbow of his aunt, that most celebrated and littlest read of Americans in Paris, Gertrude Stein. In Seattle, 90 years on, schoolteacher Matthew needs something to fill his time after complaints from a boy's parents causes his school to dispense with his services. When he tires of afternoons with 15-year-old Dogan, Matthew steals the identity of curator friend Herbert Widener, and heads to Paris on the trail of some Picasso sketches that may, or may not, be of Allan Stein. And there he falls for another 15-year-old boy, Stephane.Like Stadler's controversial last novel, The Sex Offender, Allan Stein's poetic but uncompromising sexuality will appal those to whom the notion of "age of consent" refers to age rather than consent. As Gertrude herself wrote, "What is the use of being a boy, if you grow up to become a man?" But this is no gay Lolita. Stadler's "boys" are erotic beings in their own right, described lovingly and at length, though the narrator archly gives his readers the chance to skip the sex scenes (how many will?). Allan Stein's eroticism is crucial, lying at the heart of its rebuilding of a gay literary heritage that uncomfortably straddles the West Coast and old Europe. Very little being written today is as fine as this. -- Alan Stewart
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