Where's the ending????
Oh no!! This book finished before it had ended. What happened to the relationship between Rose and Owen? What happened about their apartment?? The author forgot to end his story and now I'm left with no resolution.
Owen and Rose are 52 years old, married for 27. They have a son, Phillip, who is 25. Phillip is struggling with his sexuality, realising from an early age that he is attracted to men. When he tells his parents, he finds he is setting free an unstoppable chain of events; for his father has been hiding his similar feelings for over thirty years and secrets can't be kept forever.
The book's excellent descriptions of the characters and their angst are its strengths, but this is very much a character driven book, for there is actually is very little plot.
The Lost Language of Cranes was well out of my comfort zone but it was chosen for a book group, so I gave it a go. It was well written, I liked the author's style, but I'm not a fan of gay literature and this was pretty lurid in parts. In fact, there was more explicit sexual detail, than I'd really like even in my heterosexual reads.
The depiction of the eighties was excellent, not surprisingly, as it was originally published in 1986. Not only did New York emanate a feeling of the times, but Rose and Owen's interactions and lack of questioning within their relationship felt very genuine.
Aids hovered, like a specter in the background, but I'd have expected a bit more fear and alarm about the issue than I felt.
....but to leave so many issues unresolved???