868: “A daring tour de force”
Free at Apple Books
FREE AT APPLE BOOKS
At Home with the Glynns
Peter Leroy receives his sexual initiation at the hands of the Glynn twins, becomes a sketch doctor, listens to many tales about the night the Nevsky mansion burned, learns the value of hope, and discovers the love of his life.
“Peter Leroy’s preadolescent voice, recaptured years later by his fictive middle-aged persona, is always unerringly itself, at once unexpectedly articulate and believably childlike. It is a likable voice, ingenuous, modest, wholly engaging. As such, it earns the most fanciful events in his story a certain credibility, or at least an unresisting suspension of disbelief. We are disposed to accept whatever Mr. Kraft, in the guise of Peter Leroy, tells us, even as he confesses to mixing invention with memory, even as events become more and more whimsically improbable. . . . A daring tour de force, At Home with the Glynns . . . never loses its poise. Mr. Kraft’s cunning novel is really a children’s book (like, say, The Catcher in the Rye) for adults, which I mean as unequivocal praise. There is nothing more serious, after all, than the playful, given full play.”
Jonathan Baumbach
The New York Times Book Review
“A witty and wildly digressive epistemological examination in the form of a childhood reminiscence.”
The New Yorker
“Devolves into a perfect madeleine . . . leaving an insatiable desire for more.”
Kirkus Reviews
“Anyone who has mourned, or yearned for, his or her younger self will find Kraft an enchantment.”
Publishers Weekly
“Kraft is a master of dialogue and description.”
Town and Country
“A splendidly vivid exploration of ‘sexual pleasure amplified and augmented by the thrill of adventure.’”
Dwight Garner, New York Newsday
“Nostalgic and very funny and just a little perverse.”
Frederic Koeppel, Memphis Commercial Appeal
“Celebrates the savor of memory for the sophisticated palate.”
Boston Sunday Globe
“Postmodernism was never so pleasurable.”
Malcolm Jones, Jr., Newsweek
“One of the more hilariously erotic pieces of writing since Lolita.”
Edward Hannibal, The East Hampton Star
At Home with the Glynns is FREE at Apple Books. (It would make a great gift.)
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide. The Substack serialization of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed. The Substack podcast reading of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here.
You can listen to “My Mother Takes a Tumble” and “Do Clams Bite?” complete and uninterrupted as audiobooks through YouTube.
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At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of Little Follies, Herb ’n’ Lorna, Reservations Recommended, Where Do You Stop?, What a Piece of Work I Am, and At Home with the Glynns.
You’ll find overviews of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document), The Origin Story (here on substack), Between the Lines (a video, here on Substack), and at Encyclopedia.com.