Readers' rating:
Published Jun 2014
208 pages
Genre: Short Stories
Publication Information
James Magruder's collection of linked stories follows two gay cousins, Tom and Elliott, from adolescence in the 1970s to adulthood in the early '90s. With a rueful blend of comedy and tenderness, Magruder depicts their attempts to navigate the closet and the office and the lessons they learn about libidinous coworkers, résumé boosting, Italian suffixes, and frozen condoms. As Tom and Elliot search for trusting relationships while the AIDS crisis deepens, their paths diverge, leading Tom to a new sense of what matters most. Magruder is especially adept at rendering the moments that reveal unwritten codes of behavior to his characters, who have no way of learning them except through painful experience.
Loss is sudden, the fallout portrayed with a powerful economy. In Tom and Elliott, readers come to recognize themselves, driven by the same absurd desires and unconscious impulses, subjected to the same fates.
"Starred Review. [T]his collection—especially its final, tragic entry—will leave readers moved." - Publishers Weekly
"There are few authors who write with as much sensitivity and tenderness as James Magruder; he has a way of finding something beautiful in the most heartbreaking moments... With sharp touches of humor, this is a marvel of a story." - Kevin Wilson, author of The Family Fang
"Let Me See It overflows with honesty, hilarity, and heart. It's impossible not to love this book, impossible to turn away from its brilliant prose, wicked humor, and utterly engaging characters." - Jessica Anya Blau, author of The Wonder Bread Summer
"Let Me See It exquisitely captures the texture of boyness and its evolution into the vast and bewildering landscape of adulthood... From the first page, I fell headlong into their world and by the last, I was so very sad to leave it." - Laura van den Berg, author of The Isle of Youth
This information about Let Me See It was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
James Magruder is a fiction writer, playwright, and award-winning translator. He teaches dramaturgy at Swarthmore College and fiction at the University of Baltimore. He is also the author of a novel, Sugarless (2009).
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