cover image Jack of Hearts

Jack of Hearts

Joseph Hansen. Dutton Books, $19.95 (224pp) ISBN 978-0-525-93924-5

Readers who became acquainted with Nathan Reed in Living Upstairs will be pleased to encounter him again in this new work, set in California in 1941, two years prior to the events in the previous novel. The gay would-be writer is here 17-and in his own words, ``a nobody high school kid with a secondhand typewriter, a hundred sheets of blank dime-store paper, and voices in his head.'' His literary aspirations prompt him to join the staff of a local college newspaper, which in turn draws him into a group of thespians starting up a theater. Several opening nights, in fact, figure into Hansen's many story lines, which include a police scandal, rumors of Nazis and an attempted murder. His brief, well-paced scenes are fueled by abundant dialogue and lean, unsentimental prose. The multiplicity of characters is handled skillfully, though many are only lightly sketched. (Nathan's parents-an unemployed musician and a fortune-teller-come off as quirky and borderline cartoonish.) Hansen's readers may be disappointed that the gay California subculture is not as keenly detailed here as in Living Upstairs. Nathan's gay awakening is driven more by plot than by psychological or sexual exploration, but Hansen sagely keeps his attractive protagonist, the object of lust from characters of both sexes, full of self-doubt about his identity. (Jan.)