Second Son

by Robert Ferro, Tom Cardamone (Foreword by)

Overview

Mark Valerian, the second son in the Valerian family, is ill, but determined to live life to the fullest - and live forever if he can. When he discovers Bill Mackey, a young theatrical designer who is also suffering from this disease neither wants to name, he also finds the lover of his dreams.

Together they develop an incredible plan to survive that will take them to Europe, to rustic Maine, and finally to the wonderful seaside summer mansion of the Valerian family, where father and son confront the painful ties of kinship ... and the joyous bonds of love.

Originally published in 1988, it was Ferro's final novel, completed in the months leading to his death from AIDS as he cared for his lover Michael Grumley. This new edition contains a foreword by Tom Cardamone (Crashing Cathedrals: Edmund White by the Book).

"Second Son is transcendently beautiful; exquisitely written, exquisitely restrained. The accomplishment of Second Son reminds us of what literature has always been about - the deep examination of the soul. Rich, poignant, unforgettable, it leaves one with a rare feeling of having been in touch for a little while with the things that really matter" - Anne Rice

"In a purity of language met by purity of feeling, Robert Ferro's Second Son illuminates a tragedy of our time - the fusion of love and grieving, devotion and sorrowing - that is as venerable as the human heart itself. Earlier novels that center around sickness have turned out to be life-giving - Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain comes first to mind - and Robert Ferro enters this tradition with touching artistry, in his own robust yet tranquil voice, and with the lucent and simple clarity of hope." - Cynthia Ozick

"I admired The Family of Max Desir. I love Second Son. The surprising story of the love between two men threatened by

illness is full of fine authentic details and broader realizations about the human condition." - Doris Grumbach

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781951092436
Publisher:	Requeered Tales
Publication date:	03/15/2022
Pages:	206
Sales rank:	780,849
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.47(d)

About the Author

Robert Ferro was born in Cranford, N.J., in 1941. He graduated from Rutgers University and earned a master's degree from the University of Iowa. In late 1965 Ferro met Andrew Holleran at the Iowa Writers Workshop. He later lectured at Adelphi University. With Michael Grumley, in 1970 he co-authored Atlantis: the Autobiography of a Search. It is for his fiction, and four novels, that he was most influential. The semi-autobiographical The Family of Max Desir brought him to wide notice and acclaim. He was a member of The Violet Quill, a group of influential post-Stonewall openly gay writers in New York which included Edmund White, Andrew Holleran, Felice Picano, Christopher Cox, George Whitmore, Ferro and Grumley. He died of AIDS a few months after his partner, Michael Grumley, in 1988.

Tom Cardamone is the editor of "Crashing Cathedrals: Edmund White by the Book" and "The Lost Library: Gay Fiction Rediscovered". He is the author of the Lambda Literary Award-winning speculative novella "Green Thumb" as well as the erotic fantasy "The Lurid Sea" and other works of fiction, including two short story collections.

Editorial Reviews

A love story of two gay men dying of AIDS provides moments of exceptional power in the fourth novel by the author of The Family of Max Desir. On what they each know will be their last trip abroad after a terminal diagnosis, Mark and Bill meet in a Chernobyl-clouded Rome through the machinations of a mutual friend, Matthew, who is seen only through the letters he writes from his Florida home. The pair return to the U.S., where Mark must confront the impact of his illness on his father and siblings; the fact of his affliction becomes ``something manifest on its own . . . an evil thing set loose'' on his already divided family. If the climactic explosion of these tensions lacks the force and immediacy of the central love story, it's because the various players in the family drama are presented to the reader at the outset with their respective roles explicitly inscribed in their characterizations, while the loversand their touching alliancedevelop before our eyes. The union of these two creative people traces memorable images of vitality combating the absurdity of their lot: landscape gardener Mark envisions the terraces he cultivated flowering across Rome for years after his death; lighting designer Bill engineers an electric transformation of a private expanse of forest and lake. The novel ends on two ambiguous notesthe pair's experimental drug treatment may be a cure, and Matthew may have found salvation in the starsa dramatic reminder that, in the face of the fatal definitude of AIDS, it is only in the realm of ambiguity that the possibility of hope resides. (February 15)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Mark Valerian, second son of a wealthy manufacturer, is different from his brother and two sistershe's gay, he's artistic, and now he has AIDS. The beautiful Cape May beach house bequeathed by their mother to all her children is Mark's solace in his illness, but it is also the family's major asset when the family business suffers setbacks. There is dissension about the house, just as there is uncertainty also about how to treat Mark. Ferro ( The Family of Max Desir) here dilutes his theme with fanciful correspondence between Mark and friend Matthew and talk of a gay colonization of the star Sirius. The Valerians are a well-drawn family; more of their dealing with AIDS might have made a stronger book. Michele Leber, Fairfax Cty. P.L., Va.

Library Journal