Reviews
"Powered by stunning emotional, intellectual, and erotic complexities, JD is a trenchant portrait of a marriage and its heartbreaking casualties and, at the same time, something far more ambitious: a disquieting meditation on how and why America's best hopes went so stupendously awry during the 1960s and early 1970s. What emerges is an angry, loving hymn to a generation's failure to create the world we so passionately believed we longed for. There is no better novelist at work in our troubled country right now than Mark Merlis."--Paul Russell, author of The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov, An amazing novel: beautifully written, ingeniously structured, involving and dangerous. This is a chamber drama about one family yet it's full of windows that look out on the wider worlds of the Vietnam War, New York literary politics, and the gay revolution. Mark Merlis is a major writer and this is his best novel yet."—Christopher Bram, author of Eminent Outlaws and Gods and Monsters, An important novel that masterfully evokes the tensions and social upheavals of the 1960s and sheds a fresh and highly insightful light on gay liberation, family life, and American masculinity."—Trebor Healey, author of A Horse Named Sorrow, "Yet again, Mark Merlis has written a deeply satisfying novel, one whose voices continue to echo in your head long after you've finished reading it. . . . It is a novel that weaves together the casualties of family and unaccepted sexual desires into a remarkable, if depressing, story of the U.S. in an era of huge social change."-- Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, "Both strands of Merlis' novel--Jonathan writing from the past, Martha speaking to us in the present--are vibrant, tense and alive. Merlis has written a profound book about sex and identity and family, about the perils of artistic ambition, about radical longing and the changing social fabric of America. JD is a beautiful novel."-- Towle Road, Powered by stunning emotional, intellectual, and erotic complexities, JD is a trenchant portrait of a marriage and its heartbreaking casualties and at the same time something far more ambitious: a disquieting meditation on how and why America's best hopes went so stupendously awry during the sixties and early seventies. What emerges is an angry, loving hymn to a generation's failure to create the world we so passionately believed we longed for. There is no better novelist at work in our troubled country right now than Mark Merlis."—Paul Russell, author of Immaculate Blue and The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov, "This is vintage Merlis: historical yet timely, intellectually rich, bracingly witty, unnervingly erotic, and, finally, deeply tender and affecting."--Michael Lowenthal, author of The Paternity Test and Charity Girl, "Both strands of Merlis' novel--Jonathan writing from the past, Martha speaking to us in the present--are vibrant, tense and alive. Merlis has written a profound book about sex and identity and family, about the perils of artistic ambition, about radical longing and the changing social fabric of America. JD is a beautiful novel."-- Towle Road, "Mark Merlis's beautifully controlled and heart-wrenching novel JD . . . is narrated by aging New York widow Martha Ascher, whose husband Jonathan died from a stroke shortly after their son Mickey was killed in Vietnam. Jonathan was a writer on the anarchist left who believed in 'an ecstatic blend of political and sexual liberation' and who spiced up his home life with nocturnal prowling for willing young men. . . . But the novel's tragedy lies in the relationship between Jonathan and Mickey, who meets his father's rebellion with a destructive kind of rebellion of his own. Mr. Merlis unravels Mickey's story with steely assurance and finely tempered prose. Like Martha, he is the victim of a man who 'preached an ideal he couldn't live up to.'"-- Wall Street Journal, "An amazing novel: beautifully written, ingeniously structured, involving and dangerous. The two narrative voices here, a wife and a husband, are perfectly realized. Martha in particular is a remarkable character--I've never read anyone like her in American fiction. This is a chamber drama about one family, yet it's full of windows that look out on the wider worlds of the Vietnam War, New York literary politics, and the gay revolution. Mark Merlis is a major writer and this is his best novel yet."--Christopher Bram, author of Eminent Outlaws and Gods and Monsters, It's vintage Merlis: historical yet timely, intellectually rich, bracingly witty, unnervingly erotic, and, finally, deeply tender and affecting."—Michael Lowenthal, author of The Paternity Test, "An important novel that masterfully evokes the tensions and social upheavals of the 1960s and sheds a fresh and highly insightful light on gay liberation, family life, and American masculinity."--Trebor Healey, author of A Horse Named Sorrow and Faun, "Read JD as a suspense novel. . . . Read JD as a family saga, a page-turner of truth born from lies. Read it as commentary on the effects our past has on our future. Read it."-- Bay Area Reporter