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Nightswimmer by Joseph Olshan

It's the present day (actually the early 1990s) in New York City. First-person narrator Will remembers the first time he saw Sean, the second great love of his life. The first love of his life, Chad, disappeared ten years ago when they swam at night off the coast of California. Will has been haunted by this loss ever since.

In fact, it's because of losing Chad that makes him wary about getting involved with Sean. He has had sex with a lot of men since Chad, and has even had some failed attempts at relationships. (He and his ex-boyfriend Greg now share joint custody of their dog Casey.) But unconsciously he resists falling in love again, and has led a shallow existence for the past decade.

Now Will starts his story by addressing Sean as you:  The first time I saw you. But first he builds suspense by talking about the previous morning and how he took the train to Fire Island (that playground for gay New Yorkers) to enjoy the "Morning Party." The need to look perfect for this event has had gay men working out frantically at the gym for months.

Will's mood, however, is more pensive than festive since it's the ten year anniversary of Chad's disappearance. His mood worsens when he learns why his train is delayed:  a gay man has committed suicide by throwing himself on the tracks. Everyone shrugs off this unfortunate occurrence, but it sticks in Will's mind. The dead guy and the reasons behind his suicide will loom larger in Will's life as the novel progresses. But for now, he continues his trip to Fire Island.

The next day, on the street, Will sees a former lover Peter walking out of the gym.  An attractive stranger accompanies Peter: it's Sean, seen for the first time!  Peter introduces them.  It turns out that Sean is a friend of his, but not currently in a relationship.  Therefore, he's available!  Will is attracted but immediately finds shallow reasons to minimize Sean and to forget him. 

But Peter invites Will and Sean up to his apartment. After chit-chat (including a mention of the suicide the previous day, which causes Sean to look uneasy), Will and Sean find themselves leaving together. As they walk down the street, Sean asks Will straight out about the "guy who burned you."  He's alluding to Chad, of course, and Will is shocked at Sean's perceptiveness. 

Flustered, Will turns the conversation back on Sean, wanting to know how Sean can intuit such things.  Sean explains that he grew up a military brat, moved from Marine base to base by his father who was an officer. This nomadic existence gave Sean the ability to read people swiftly and accurately.  Little does Will know, but Sean has tragic secrets of his own that involve his father and his first- and forbidden-love whom he lost in circumstances different from, but no less painful, than Will's loss of Chad.

Their uneasy courtship unfolds, full of secretiveness and obsession and mistrust and hope. At the same time, Will begins to experience an escalating series of threatening events.  Could some man or men be trying to keep him and Sean apart? This aspect of the book intrudes just enough to provide a rough plot-structure, but you never really get the feeling that Will is in trouble.  The "danger" is not the real focus of the book, which is to uncover the layers of Sean's personality and to tantalize us with whether or not Will can put Chad's ghost to rest and learn to love again.

Nightswimmer is beautifully written in a clear, understated way. Because the prose is so straightforward and precise, it draws you in with no distractions. The sex scenes are numerous and fairly explicit in a literary way that keeps them in proportion with the plot.

In one especially good scene near the end of the book, Will describes his experience being on the receiving end of sex with a man (Chad, of course) for the first time.  Here at ObsidianBookshelf.com, I remember my surprise when I first read this scene years ago: it had never occurred to me that a gay man could have lots of sex with lots of guys and always choose to be the active partner, never the passive partner. 

The scene stands as one of the most realistic, yet tasteful, descriptions of gay sex I've read before or since because it involves anxiety and pain as well as pleasure.  You never really hear about the awkward aspects of gay sex.  Nightswimmer, in many ways, is a ground-breaking book.

Relevant Links:   Contemporary Fiction   The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst   Dancer from the Dance by Andrew Holleran   Nightswimmer is inconceivably out-of-print, but used copies abound and can be found on Amazon through this link:   Nightswimmer

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