Home >  A & E >  Books

'The Pate Turner: A Novel' by David Leavitt

Lyrical Moments Lift Tale Of Seduction

Sunday, June 28, 1998

By Diana Nelson Jones, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

	The Pate Turner: A Novel By David Leavitt Houghton Mifflin $24.00

A cleverly named novel whose main character turns pages for concert pianists, the pace of "The Page Turner" has just enough dynamic variation to avoid being adagio.

It's about seduction on a couple of levels, the seduction of fame and of people. Paul Porterfield, an over-mothered near-prodigy on the piano, is headed for Juilliard, but while still in high school, he gets a gig as a page turner for famous pianist Richard Kennington at a concert in San Francisco. The latter is smitten with the boy and, months later, runs into him in Rome, where Paul is on vacation with his stage-mother mom, Pamela.

Paul, perhaps unwittingly, began the seduction in San Francisco with his childlike reverence and adoration of Kennington. In Rome, Kennington seduces Paul in his hotel room. The two men deceive Pamela into thinking they are sight-seeing together; she waits for them to return and they are always late, but she is so eager to have her son use this connection to make a name for himself that she waits proudly. She is lonely after a nasty divorce and also tries to pursue Kennington.

The strain of both of them becomes inconvenient for the pianist, and so, in spite of an understanding that he would go on with them to Florence, he disappears without an explanation.

Back in New York, at Juilliard, Paul pines for Kennington but gets involved in another relationship, actually in two - one with Kennington's manager and long-time lover, Joseph.

The clueless Pamela has to sneak around among Paul's belongings to finally realize her son is gay and that he had a relationship with Kennington.

By this time, Paul has discovered something much more profound about himself.

The ending is excellent. Most novels, even ones that are good throughout, lose air at the end, as if the author, so happy to be done, just lets the whole bundle drift to a stop. Leavitt writes a tight, poignant and apt ending.

This is not a deep book, and it is not a page turner, but it has its lyric moments and some interesting takes on common themes and good characters. Leavitt deals nicely with the subjects of fame and genius, juxtaposing the young Paul's vision of fame as interesting against Kennington's weariness that fame has always gotten in the way of his artistry.

In the end, when everyone knows the truth about everyone else, it's all about disappointment, with the next step moving on.