This is novelist Plante's (best known for his "Francoeur" trilogy: The Family, The Country, and The Woods) fourth book of nonfiction. Like the author's Becoming a Londoner and The Pure Lover, it is drawn from his extensive diaries and edited to focus on a particular narrative-this time, Plante's often long-distance relationship with the poet and publisher Nikos Stangos (1936-2004). The melancholy tone is reminiscent of Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin but without the feeling of the Nazi specter looming-although the AIDS epidemic emerges during the period covered by the text, adding a mournful gloss to occasional oblique glimpses of a soon-to-be-decimated 1980s gay subculture. It would be a mistake to pigeonhole this is as an LGBT title, however, as the world Plante and -Stangos inhabit is one of authors and artists of all genders and persuasions. Indeed, the many crisscrossing relationships-regardless of how briefly they appear-are given their own individual and complex podium, setting each apart in a way that still somehow universalizes what could initially seem like a very rarefied set of experiences. VERDICT Recommended for lovers of arts and letters, students of recent history, and all academic and public libraries.-Jenny Brewer, Helen Hall Lib., League City, TX © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Novelist Plante continues to mine his decades-spanning diary to create vivid, intimate, in-the-moment memoirs documenting his literary and art-filled cosmopolitan life. Becoming a Londoner (2013) chronicled the start of his relationship with the love of his life, poet and publishing director Nikos Stangos. This meticulously detailed 1980s chronicle begins with a return to the States to see his family, which introduces the book's central inquiry into how a life can contain so many disparate worlds and how one's sense of self morphs within each. Plante goes on to chronicle a stream of adventures: his first visit to a gay bathhouse, his surprising affair with artist Jennifer Bartlett, buying a home in Umbria, a trip to Israel with Philip Roth, and a teaching gig in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he shared a house with Germaine Greer. Plante also candidly and searchingly records the ups and downs of his life with Stangos as they focus ever more intently on being in the world together. A remarkably affecting, open, graceful, and scintillating record of a 38-year same-sex union and two entwined creative lives fully lived.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2015 Booklist