The Lost Language of Cranes

By David Leavitt

Alfred A. Knopf; 319 pages; $17.95

PHILIP BENJAMIN, in bed with his lover Eliot, is afraid to move. Even though the two men's nocturnal tossings and turnings have left Philip pinned beneath Eliot, Philip refuses to try to free himself. Love makes Philip thrash, we are told, and he has already awakened Eliot 10 times during the night. So philip remains still, wondering about the time but unable to turn his head toward the clock, trying to keep his sleeplessness a secret.

The Lost Language of Cranes, David Leavitt's much-awaited first novel, is a work obsessed with secrets. Leavitt, age 25, has been heralded as the "voice of his generation" in some quarters of the New York literary set, where his 1984 collection of short stories, Family Dancing, won gushing praise. Because he frequently deals with "gay themes," and because Leavitt is himself a homosexual, some have dubbed him the spokesman of young gays as well.

In fact, Leavitt is a spokesman, but not as much for young gays, perhaps, as for young people in general. His writing is passionate and brimming with empathy, and he can throw off lines that reach inside and squeeze. Leavitt writes about a state of still-burgeoning maturity where oppressive neediness drives away lovers, and where secrets imprudently revealed or kept become daggers implanted in people's hearts.

Cranes is also about "coming of age." As the young writer struggles to gain control of his talent, the young adult similarly searches for love and happiness. Like Philip, Leavitt frequently lacks perspective. Still, the parallel somehow makes the excesses of the author and his protagonist a bit more tolerable. Writing, like romance, works best when the participants are mature, confident, and know when to be silent. Both David Leavitt and his main character are still maturing.

PART OF THE process of maturation for Philip is revealing his homosexuality to his parents, Rose and Owen. But when he delivers the news, his mother doesn't praise his for-thrightness. "I'm not sure I'm glad you told me," she says. "We all have secrets, Philip. I have secrets, lots of secrets. Does that mean they should all be revealed?"

Philip naively fails to grasp her message, for surely, he thinks, openness is the best policy. But his revelation has already done more than he knows.

Gay like his son, Owen has gone the route chosen by too many gay men of his generation: marriage, fatherhood, and anguished outings to gay porn theaters for furtive encounters in the seats. Twenty-seven years into his deception, the facade begins to crumble under the weight of his son's revelation.

Philip's homosexuality has been far easier than his father's. Blessedly born to a different generation, he has good friends, New York's gay nightlife, and for the moment, Eliot. But Philip hasn't escaped scar-free. His tortured, secretive adolescence, spent masturbating in the company of porn magazines and wishing his same-sex yearnings would pass, has left him unsure and dependent. He grasps his lover so tightly that the more worldly and self-assured Eliot eventually crumbles throught his fingers.

PHILIP'S FLOUNDERING attempts to come to grips with his past, to achieve a sense of well-being and "self-containment," drive the book forward. The route he travels is scattered with daunting problems and wonderful characters, both of which Leavitt treats with sympathy and skill. Jerene, Eliot's roommate, does graduate work in Linguistics. She studies lost languages, which are a heavy-handed symbol for the derailed communication and crushed spirits littered throughout the book.

Heavy-handedness, in fact, pervades Leavitt's work; even the most empathetic reader will sometimes find his urgency, wistfulness and sentimentality excessive. When Eliot initiates Philip into the fraternity of nick-free shaving, it is Leavitt's prose that does the most bleeding:

Now Eliot was teaching him, and he thought how this intimacy--Eliot carefully maneuvering the razor around his chin, washing off extra shaving cream, patting his face dry; this thrill of smooth, wet skin, shining--this belonged to men who were lovers alone. It seemed to him a kind of celebration.

Pop open the champagne. Lines like this, no matter how heartfelt, become exhausting after a while and beg to be parodied. Still, Leavitt, like Philip, must be taken with a grain of salt. Both 25-year-olds need time to mature, to stop pandering for approval. But they also have much to offer, and their occasional well-meaning lapses can, when viewed with the right attitude, make them all the more endearing.

The Lost Language of Cranes seems to have confirmed Leavitt as a promising young talent. He may need to drive a bit more cautiously, but at least he's at the wheel of a Rolls Royce. And that's not bad for someone just three years out of Yale.