The Washington Post reports the sad news that local gay writer Mark Merlis, two of whose novels—American Studies and An Arrow's Flight—our group has discussed, died on Aug. 15 at the age of 67 from ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease).
For much of his adult life, as Merlis notes on his own website, he earned his livelihood doing health care analysis for the Library of Congress's Congressional Research Service and, later, as an independent consultant (experiences he drew on for his most autobiographical novel, Man about Town). But he also harbored literary ambitions that found fruition with the publication of American Studies in 1994. That novel, like the three that followed, has been widely praised for the sensitivity with which Merlis addresses such themes as the corrosive effect of shame and the intersecting paths of past and present.
The title of novelist Christopher Bram's loving tribute in the Aug. 22 Advocate, "The Books of Mark Merlis Brought Modern Gay Identity to Life," really says it all. As Bram notes, the novels "share a family resemblance: fine literary texture, a keen sense of gay history, a moral complexity worthy of Henry James, and strong sexuality. But he never repeated himself."
Bram calls Merlis' second novel, An Arrow's Flight (first published in the U.K. as Pyrrhus in 1999), his personal favorite, an assessment I heartily second. It could have been a mere "stunt, an elaborate joke: a gay retelling of the Philoctetes story set in the age of AIDS. Go-go boys mingle with Greek soldiers in ancient armor; soothsayers advise hustlers. It's wonderfully inventive and wildly funny. Yet the novel ends on a tender note that's not just moving but wise."
I'm chagrinned to admit that I had no idea Merlis had published his fourth (and, sadly, last) novel, JD: A Novel, in 2015. It's available in hardcover and on Kindle, and I've just ordered it in the latter format. From the plot summary, it appears it explores some of the themes in American Studies, and I look forward eagerly to reading it.
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There is occasionally talk about rereading some book on our "Read" list. We've only done that once—with Plato's "The Symposium" (which I'd be ready to discuss for a third time in a few years). I haven't perused the list but I notice that we read An Arrow's Flight over seventeen years ago and I think I'd put it at the top of my reread list. But then there are two Merlis novels we haven't read and one of them JD recently published. But then (it's called "anaphora") there are so many authors we haven't touched that to read a second, or a third (e.g. Paul Russell) or even a fourth (Michael Cunningham) by the same author seems … hmm, excessive? indulgent? absent-minded? And for the record Merlis was a local boy, which should count for something.
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