Book Review: Nights in Aruba (Andrew Holleran)

My enjoyment of Anderw Holleran’s writing continues.  I have to admit to some reservations about the book I have just read, Nights in Aruba.
 

The first thing that bothered me was the fact that most of it had nothing to do with Aruba.  Even the chapters set in Aruba…I’m not sure what they were supposed to be about.

What I found most interesting was the fact that his family got evicted from their Boston apartment when the landlady discovered that they supported Eisenhower (I think this was 1952).  That is how the family ends up in Aruba.  But I don’t understand the significance of Aruba in the story.  Later, when the narrator reaches draft age, he ends up in Germany, during the Vietnam War.

I thought this would interest me, because I lived in Germany myself, with the U.S. Army.  But Germany doesn’t really matter too much in this novel either; it’s just where he meets some more men, one or two of whom he already knew from an earlier time in Florida.

The book reverts to what we have heard from Holleran in other books:  Gay life in New York City during the ’70s and ‘80s, and life with the family in rural northern Florida.  This ground is familiar to me from Holleran’s other novels; but I’m not sure that anything new is added here.

Of course, Aruba is added; but what is its significance?  It comes across as a dry, hot place I would never want to visit.  No—I take that back.  I can imagine visiting for a week or so, to enjoy the beaches.  But you would have to enjoy the beaches, because there is not much else there.  It and rural Florida are the opposite of New York; maybe that is the point.  Maybe Holleran’s experiences exist in the dichotomy between the gay life in New York City, and its opposite  in these other locales.

I will continue to say that Holleran’s writing is beautiful.  It’s one of the main reasons I read Holleran.  This in spite of the fact that I have little desire to visit any of the places he describes—whether it’s rural Florida, Aruba, or New York gay bars.

I’ve seen an interview where Holleran himself says he went off track in this novel.  It was still fun to read, and interesting—and, of course, beautiful.  Holleran is always beautiful.  I just didn’t quite understand this one, on the whole.