DATE: Sunday, April 6, 1997                 TAG: 9704030581

SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J2   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Book Review

SOURCE: BY JULIE HALE 

                                            LENGTH:   87 lines

COMPELLING NOVELLAS FOUND FLEEING INTO ``ARKANSAS''

ARKANSAS

Three Novellas

DAVID LEAVITT

Houghton Mifflin. 198 pp. $23.

David Leavitt's impressive new collection of novellas, Arkansas, takes both its title and epigraph from a statement Oscar Wilde made around the time his remarkable life was ending: ``I should like to flee like a wounded hart into Arkansas.'' Of course, that flamboyant aesthete had a knack for attracting controversy. As a writer whose private life was ruthlessly subjected to public perusal, the wounded Wilde saw exile as an antidote.

Leavitt, too, knows what it's like to live at the center of scandal. The first of the three novellas in Arkansas, titled ``The Term Paper Artist,'' was pulled from a recent issue of Esquire magazine - rumor has it - because of the story's explicit depictions of gay sex. Back in 1991, Leavitt - only 31 years old - caused a stir by appropriating part of poet Stephen Spender's autobiography for use in his novel, While England Sleeps. Spender, a fixture in British poetry for six decades, sued Leavitt for plagiarism and won. Publication of While England Sleeps came to a halt, and exile, no doubt, took on a whole new meaning for the young writer.

Indeed, ``The Term Paper Artist,'' by far the strongest story in what is Leavitt's sixth book, deals directly with the aftershocks of the Spender scandal. The novella is a clever blend of fact and fiction in which the protagonist is none other than . . . David Leavitt, a writer who flees New York for Los Angeles and the safety of his father's house, after being sued by a famous poet. There, the Leavitt character works on a new novel, but thanks to his recent trauma, suffers writer's block, a handicap he tries to kick through aimless ramblings around L.A. and long hours in the library.

Research for the book proves equally fruitless: ``I grow impatient with facts,'' Leavitt says. ``And yet I cannot deny the more pressing reason for my indolence: it was fear.''

His fear endures until the arrival of Eric, a UCLA undergrad who offers the writer sex in exchange for a much-needed term paper, and this is where the story definitely departs the realm of fact: Leavitt's fictional self accepts Eric's offer, and soon has a steady clientele of male students. His price for a paper is, ultimately, pleasure, and the business he does becomes a kind of therapy, one that renews his passion for writing:

``Those papers, taken together, constituted the best work I'd done in my life. And perhaps this was precisely because they were written to exchange for pleasure. . . . Thus the earliest troubadours sang, so that damsels might throw down ropes from virginal balconies.''

Leavitt's handling of his own controversy is artful and honest, and his skill extends to the other novellas in Arkansas. ``The Wooden Anniversary,'' set in Italy, is a tale of reunion among three friends, believably told by a narrator named Lizzie. Celia and Nathan complete the trio, and Celia's cooking school in the lavish Tuscan countryside is where they meet.

There is friction aplenty in this picturesque scenario: Celia loves Nathan, who is gay. Nathan loves Mauro, Celia's cook, a tempting Italian whom Lizzie likens to ``one of those tigers Victorian ladies kept for pets.'' A soap opera of sorts unfolds before Lizzie's eyes, one the author - whose reverance for Italy shines through in this story - infuses with humor, complexity and a hint of melodrama.

Leavitt holds the story in check, however.

His command slips a bit with the awkward ``Saturn Street,'' a story that takes one of its main thematic premises from a ``Star Trek'' episode that the characters watch - a twist that cheapens the story. The narrator is Jerry, a young screenwriter who delivers meals to AIDS victims in Los Angeles: ``I had a car, and nowhere to go in the mornings,'' Jerry says. ``So I brought food.''

Like the Leavitt character in ``The Term Paper Artist,'' Jerry is a transplanted New Yorker who spends most of his time driving aimlessly around the city, avoiding work. He is an outsider who alleviates his loneliness through phone sex and radio talk shows, a character looking to ``connect.''

When Jerry falls in love with one of the patients on his delivery route, he comes close to the union he seeks. But in the age of AIDS, as Leavitt shows, connection doesn't come easily. ``Saturn Street'' explores the worlds of AIDS and male homosexuality, and it's a trip that may come as a culture shock to some readers. But - as with the whole of Arkansas - it is the author's eye for the real, his ability to capture the anxieties of a mass-communication era in which little meaning is exchanged, that contributes to the success of his work.

Leavitt's appeal lies also in his clean, complete prose, the charm of his voice, his antique turns of phrase. At times, his tone is delightfully hybrid - E.M. Forster's delicate sensibility, balanced with a '90's raunchiness. Indeed, it is Forster's famous entreaty to man that lies at the heart of this book: ``Only connect.'' With Arkansas, David Leavitt does just that. MEMO: Julie Hale is a writer who lives in Norfolk.

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