Landscape with Traveler : The Pillow Book of Francis Reeves

Barry Gifford's first full-length novel is an unusual, captivating exploration into the life of a single man. Written in the form used by the classic Japanese writer Sei Shonagon in her Pillow Book - short, essayistic stories or tales woven around a central moral - this landscape is the self-portrait of a man, who, often swept away by passion in his youth, approaches his later years with increasing distance and an almost Zen-like tranquility. Landscape with Traveler: The Pillow Book of Francis Reeves is Barry Gifford's first full-length novel. In print for the first time in fifteen years, Landscape with Traveler is written as the protagonist's diary—inspired by the first century Japanese writer Sei Shōnagon's pillow book—and structured as three acclaimed short novels bound into one volume. The book recounts the deep friendship between a middle-aged gay man and a young straight man through vignette-like entries, all the while tracing a history of the US from the 1930s through 1970s. Laying bare the themes that have marked his lifelong career: a winsome, beat-inspired frenzy of love, a generation-defining crossroads in American history—the novel tells an honest story of a male homosexual life. Barry Gifford. Originally Published By E. P. Dutton New York, 1980.