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The Listener: A Novella and Four Stories
She centerpiece of this remarkable collection (winner of the 1V94 Gregory Kolovakos Award) by Bo Huston is a novella called The Listener. Set in a small town along the Northern California coast, the story revolves around Jane, the town's crazy lady, whose obsessions become a physical threat to her little boy, and Paul, a gay man seeking solitude to recover from the death of a friend. In a stunning literary pas de deux, Jane meets God and Paul finds Jane, in a story that shimmers with magic reajism. The same themes of love, family, and faith reverberate through all the stories in this book to illuminate Huston's vision of life as at once treacherous and beautiful.
168 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1993
33 people want to read
About the author
Bo Huston
7 books3 followersBo Huston was a columnist for the San Francisco Bay Times, and wrote reviews and articles, as well as fiction, for many other publications. He graduated from Hampshire College in 1980, published four books of fiction, and exhibited photographic pieces at several galleries.
More information: https://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/2...
More information: https://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/2...
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 11, 2014
Spectacular, true, every word right, perfect, so sad, which he surely meant THE LISTENER to be, but all the more so because Bo Huston left us early, only four books written in his abbreviated life when there should have been a hundred. Friends of mine knew him; I am angry with myself I didn't. Not fair, not fair.
August 18, 2021
This author died an untimely death due to AIDS in 1993 after publishing 2 novels and a book of short stories. This collection consisting of a 98 page novella and 4 additional short stories was published posthumously. The author has a wonderful style and ambiguity in his writing and I highly recommend this collection. I would be interested in reading his other works but they are all out of print and seriously expensive on the used book sites
January 4, 2026
From Kirkus review at: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...
"...a collection that makes use of magical realism—in a title novella about a gay man and a faith healer—and of a film noir ambience in a few of the four stories here. The author's odd, marginal characters and their quirky (and slightly perverse) worlds are well-rendered. In the novella, the best thing here, gay Paul, bereaved over Mark, puts aside his lectures about photography in San Francisco to stay in a small northern California town and recuperate. As Paul tells his story in letters to his sister, Huston intersperses crazy Jane's narrative with Paul's story—Jane believes her perfectly healthy boy is deathly ill until a mysterious stranger teaches her to love and to heal with her touch, whereupon she becomes a faith healer who works for free and who eventually crosses paths with Paul: ``I was my old breakable self. Jane was possibility.'' Of the other stories, one of the most interesting is ``Freud's Big Trouble,'' about a gay man accused of touching a boy; the man (``Men are things; women are people'') runs away to the Crossroads Inn and the Transfer Lounge—such film noir touches permeate the story. Likewise, in ``A Better Place,'' a grade-school teacher from the city who ``felt like a ghost'' comes to a desert town to teach and faces her own demons in a quiet Hitchcockian setting. Again, literary imitation occasionally mars an otherwise original story, but, still, Huston entertains with his quirky vision and sometimes (especially in the novella) moves the reader."
I always think it is worthwhile seeking out reviews from when a book was published, in this case 1993, even when I don't completely agree with them, as in this case. For a start I regard the use of the term 'magic realism' as lazy in general and completely inaccurate in this case. More importantly is the failure to mention that this is a posthumous collection, Huston died at 33 in 1993 of AIDS, and it is almost impossible to deal with any of his work outside of that fact. He was diagnosed in 1988 and all his four books (two novels and two story collections) appeared after that date. If anyone doubts what we lost to AIDS then Huston is a perfect example (read this fine profile at: https://lithub.com/remembering-bo-hus... - of course there is no hierarchy of greater or lesser worth when it comes to dying young whether from AIDS or anything else. Every loss, no matter the circumstance, is tragic because of lost potential).
It is within the context of his extraordinary output that I read and loved these stories like I have loved everything I have read by Bo Huston. I can't contain a suspicion that the spectre of his inevitable early death haunts these stories - I often say that an author's work must be judged independent of biography but I can't in this case - if he had lived, or at least lived longer, it is possible he might have with held or revised some of these stories. We are not told if Huston was satisfied with them or if his friends and admirers have simply gathered up anything in approaching a publishable condition for this final work. That doesn't mean I am not grateful to have them - I am only wondering. I am not sure there isn't an unfinished quality to several of the pieces.
But don't take my word - read them - if I could have written prose like this at 33, at any age, I would have been very happy. Huston is a remarkable talent - if there are reservations it is only because he is so good and could have been truly amazing. That he didn't reach those heights only makes what he left so precious - and a constant rebuke to the meretricious tripe that fills the best seller lists.
"...a collection that makes use of magical realism—in a title novella about a gay man and a faith healer—and of a film noir ambience in a few of the four stories here. The author's odd, marginal characters and their quirky (and slightly perverse) worlds are well-rendered. In the novella, the best thing here, gay Paul, bereaved over Mark, puts aside his lectures about photography in San Francisco to stay in a small northern California town and recuperate. As Paul tells his story in letters to his sister, Huston intersperses crazy Jane's narrative with Paul's story—Jane believes her perfectly healthy boy is deathly ill until a mysterious stranger teaches her to love and to heal with her touch, whereupon she becomes a faith healer who works for free and who eventually crosses paths with Paul: ``I was my old breakable self. Jane was possibility.'' Of the other stories, one of the most interesting is ``Freud's Big Trouble,'' about a gay man accused of touching a boy; the man (``Men are things; women are people'') runs away to the Crossroads Inn and the Transfer Lounge—such film noir touches permeate the story. Likewise, in ``A Better Place,'' a grade-school teacher from the city who ``felt like a ghost'' comes to a desert town to teach and faces her own demons in a quiet Hitchcockian setting. Again, literary imitation occasionally mars an otherwise original story, but, still, Huston entertains with his quirky vision and sometimes (especially in the novella) moves the reader."
I always think it is worthwhile seeking out reviews from when a book was published, in this case 1993, even when I don't completely agree with them, as in this case. For a start I regard the use of the term 'magic realism' as lazy in general and completely inaccurate in this case. More importantly is the failure to mention that this is a posthumous collection, Huston died at 33 in 1993 of AIDS, and it is almost impossible to deal with any of his work outside of that fact. He was diagnosed in 1988 and all his four books (two novels and two story collections) appeared after that date. If anyone doubts what we lost to AIDS then Huston is a perfect example (read this fine profile at: https://lithub.com/remembering-bo-hus... - of course there is no hierarchy of greater or lesser worth when it comes to dying young whether from AIDS or anything else. Every loss, no matter the circumstance, is tragic because of lost potential).
It is within the context of his extraordinary output that I read and loved these stories like I have loved everything I have read by Bo Huston. I can't contain a suspicion that the spectre of his inevitable early death haunts these stories - I often say that an author's work must be judged independent of biography but I can't in this case - if he had lived, or at least lived longer, it is possible he might have with held or revised some of these stories. We are not told if Huston was satisfied with them or if his friends and admirers have simply gathered up anything in approaching a publishable condition for this final work. That doesn't mean I am not grateful to have them - I am only wondering. I am not sure there isn't an unfinished quality to several of the pieces.
But don't take my word - read them - if I could have written prose like this at 33, at any age, I would have been very happy. Huston is a remarkable talent - if there are reservations it is only because he is so good and could have been truly amazing. That he didn't reach those heights only makes what he left so precious - and a constant rebuke to the meretricious tripe that fills the best seller lists.
April 19, 2022
SMOKING AND SHRUGGING
When I read the opening paragraph of The Listener, I said out loud to myself, “Wow!” Paul, a gay man who has come to a small town on the northern California coast to seek refuge from all the dying, sees “a woman, all in black, with a beret, dragging a little boy by the hand.” He describes them as “this strange pair.” This strange pair is Jane and her son Russell. Jane’s unconventionality is threatening to the town. She meets a stranger in the local bar who causes a life-changing transformation of her life. Paul and Jane finally confront each other on the unforgettable last page of the novella. Paul says, “My eyes met her eyes. Our complicity in this story is suddenly apparent, isn’t it?” The Listener is a puzzling, gorgeously written story.
The four short stories included with The Listener hang on its coattails, but each of them packs its own wallop. “Freud’s Big Trouble” is a ready-made film noir for Edmund O’Brien and Ida Lupino. Jack is on the lam after being accused of molesting a little boy. He temporarily rents a room at the Crossroads Inn and meets a pushy woman named Ida—yes, Ida—at the Transfer Lounge. Ida throws herself at Jack and tells him she needs a friend. Jack, a homosexual, gives us this priceless treatise on men: “Men are for sex. Men are things. They are jawlines and muscular necks, firm shoulders, broad chests, round, tough butts, strong legs. They are faces—an intelligent brow, pretty, moist, thick lips; ears too big, or too small; cheeks too soft or too chiseled. Men are dicks.” This is my favorite story from The Listener.
“This Is Not That” is a sad story. Francis, who has AIDS, comes home to give his final good-bye to his mother and then leave. His mother thinks he’s just running away as he’s always done and will come back again bringing trouble. “A Better Place” is a suspenseful story about Miss Dent, a frustrated schoolteacher, who self-destructs after a fatal accident involving one of her students. She cries out at the end, “Give me some new, other life, in a better place. If you only will take care of me now. Take care of me now.” In “My Monster,” Robert, who experiences a different kind of transformation than Jane in The Listener, asks the narrator for a cigarette and shrugs and winks at him.
Throughout Bo Huston’s two collections of short stories and two novels, his characters are experts at smoking and shrugging. They frequently drop references to old movies and screen stars. He describes small towns as if they were settings in a Frank Capra movie, but he shows that underneath the all-American façade of innocence and happiness an almost insurmountable darkness and sadness can lie.
Bo Huston is a queer author lost to AIDS who should not be forgotten. He died in 1993 at the age of 33. Some enterprising GLBTQ publisher should reprint Huston’s books in an omnibus volume.
When I read the opening paragraph of The Listener, I said out loud to myself, “Wow!” Paul, a gay man who has come to a small town on the northern California coast to seek refuge from all the dying, sees “a woman, all in black, with a beret, dragging a little boy by the hand.” He describes them as “this strange pair.” This strange pair is Jane and her son Russell. Jane’s unconventionality is threatening to the town. She meets a stranger in the local bar who causes a life-changing transformation of her life. Paul and Jane finally confront each other on the unforgettable last page of the novella. Paul says, “My eyes met her eyes. Our complicity in this story is suddenly apparent, isn’t it?” The Listener is a puzzling, gorgeously written story.
The four short stories included with The Listener hang on its coattails, but each of them packs its own wallop. “Freud’s Big Trouble” is a ready-made film noir for Edmund O’Brien and Ida Lupino. Jack is on the lam after being accused of molesting a little boy. He temporarily rents a room at the Crossroads Inn and meets a pushy woman named Ida—yes, Ida—at the Transfer Lounge. Ida throws herself at Jack and tells him she needs a friend. Jack, a homosexual, gives us this priceless treatise on men: “Men are for sex. Men are things. They are jawlines and muscular necks, firm shoulders, broad chests, round, tough butts, strong legs. They are faces—an intelligent brow, pretty, moist, thick lips; ears too big, or too small; cheeks too soft or too chiseled. Men are dicks.” This is my favorite story from The Listener.
“This Is Not That” is a sad story. Francis, who has AIDS, comes home to give his final good-bye to his mother and then leave. His mother thinks he’s just running away as he’s always done and will come back again bringing trouble. “A Better Place” is a suspenseful story about Miss Dent, a frustrated schoolteacher, who self-destructs after a fatal accident involving one of her students. She cries out at the end, “Give me some new, other life, in a better place. If you only will take care of me now. Take care of me now.” In “My Monster,” Robert, who experiences a different kind of transformation than Jane in The Listener, asks the narrator for a cigarette and shrugs and winks at him.
Throughout Bo Huston’s two collections of short stories and two novels, his characters are experts at smoking and shrugging. They frequently drop references to old movies and screen stars. He describes small towns as if they were settings in a Frank Capra movie, but he shows that underneath the all-American façade of innocence and happiness an almost insurmountable darkness and sadness can lie.
Bo Huston is a queer author lost to AIDS who should not be forgotten. He died in 1993 at the age of 33. Some enterprising GLBTQ publisher should reprint Huston’s books in an omnibus volume.
August 10, 2008
There is something very sweet and sad about all of the characters in these stories, without being sentimental, that touched me. Tender is the word. I hear "Remember Me" is his masterpiece, so I'm definitely going to be reading more Bo Huston.
June 19, 2022
Short review: If you can stomach magic realism, you'll love this short novel and the latter two of the short stories. If, like me, you have absolutely no tolerance for the genre, you'll have decidedly mixed feelings.
"The Listener" has two plot strands that of course eventually converge. First there's Paul, a photographer and university lecturer on same, who has taken up residence in an absent friend's home in an indifferent Northern California coastal town, and his growing fondness for (and, quite probably, growing madness in adapting to) living away from urban excitement. He tells his story in a series of letters to his sister, which are a bit preciously written, but this preciousness does contrast nicely with the third-person omniscient with which the other strand is narrated. This is the story of a disturbed mother from a disturbed family, a hoarder who is slowly killing her five-year-old son in a sort of Munchhausen-by-proxy manner. So far so good, and the clinical, almost icy manner in which certain episodes are related, such as when we first encounter the bedtime ritual, are really impressive. (Readers of Huston's *Dream Life* will note that bad mother-child relationships are a recurring theme in his work.) But then the mother encounters an ex(?)-lunatic who not only gives her the gift of healthy peace of mind, but the gift of laying-on-of-hands as well; she cleans up her life, becomes a model Fifties Sitcom mom (if without the laugh track), and becomes a successful faith healer. The last pages are particularly annoying: Paul has taken up stalking her home in a clumsy, semiconscious desire to get himself healed, and the narration switches back and forth between third-person omniscient and first-person. This might make the reader wonder whether the much of the mother-child story is a fantasy product of Paul's mental deterioration, but no, I suspect it's just magic realism.
Of the two magic realist short stories, "My Monster" works better; in its brevity it can be taken as a variation on the "kiss a frog, get a prince" theme. "A Better Place" tracks the ever-accelerating demise of a novice schoolteacher, a transplant from the Big Apple to some Southwestern desert town, but its final section works only on a metaphorical level. The other two stories are undeniably fine; "This Is Not That" being one of the best examples of the son-with-AIDS-coming-home-to-die type (a type that is, sadly, well represented in gay literature).
At least four stars if you can stomach magic realism; two from me. So I'll give it three.
"The Listener" has two plot strands that of course eventually converge. First there's Paul, a photographer and university lecturer on same, who has taken up residence in an absent friend's home in an indifferent Northern California coastal town, and his growing fondness for (and, quite probably, growing madness in adapting to) living away from urban excitement. He tells his story in a series of letters to his sister, which are a bit preciously written, but this preciousness does contrast nicely with the third-person omniscient with which the other strand is narrated. This is the story of a disturbed mother from a disturbed family, a hoarder who is slowly killing her five-year-old son in a sort of Munchhausen-by-proxy manner. So far so good, and the clinical, almost icy manner in which certain episodes are related, such as when we first encounter the bedtime ritual, are really impressive. (Readers of Huston's *Dream Life* will note that bad mother-child relationships are a recurring theme in his work.) But then the mother encounters an ex(?)-lunatic who not only gives her the gift of healthy peace of mind, but the gift of laying-on-of-hands as well; she cleans up her life, becomes a model Fifties Sitcom mom (if without the laugh track), and becomes a successful faith healer. The last pages are particularly annoying: Paul has taken up stalking her home in a clumsy, semiconscious desire to get himself healed, and the narration switches back and forth between third-person omniscient and first-person. This might make the reader wonder whether the much of the mother-child story is a fantasy product of Paul's mental deterioration, but no, I suspect it's just magic realism.
Of the two magic realist short stories, "My Monster" works better; in its brevity it can be taken as a variation on the "kiss a frog, get a prince" theme. "A Better Place" tracks the ever-accelerating demise of a novice schoolteacher, a transplant from the Big Apple to some Southwestern desert town, but its final section works only on a metaphorical level. The other two stories are undeniably fine; "This Is Not That" being one of the best examples of the son-with-AIDS-coming-home-to-die type (a type that is, sadly, well represented in gay literature).
At least four stars if you can stomach magic realism; two from me. So I'll give it three.
May 18, 2019
Death and Dread sit on the porch, sipping a glass of tea with melting ice, each perhaps smoking an endless cigarette, in some of the late much missed author Bo Huston's stories in 'The Listener.' The title novella introduced us to the eccentric Jane and her sweet young son Russell. In re-reading this book after many years, I worried for the boy's fate, but followed along as their lives, that of visitor Paul, and the small town gossipers interlaced.
A hopeful ending (spoiler) concludes that tale, but Dread pervades, poetically and tragically, in the second longest story "A Better Place," about a rather unqualified grade-school teacher and her hateful impulses.
The stories "Freud's Big Trouble" (a gay man on the lam and a drunkard woman whose lives collide in a seedy motel) and "This is Not That" (gay man dying of AIDS comes home to his unfulfilled mother and tiresome sister) bring a vague cruelty and ennui to life in Huston's poetic style.
A hopeful ending (spoiler) concludes that tale, but Dread pervades, poetically and tragically, in the second longest story "A Better Place," about a rather unqualified grade-school teacher and her hateful impulses.
The stories "Freud's Big Trouble" (a gay man on the lam and a drunkard woman whose lives collide in a seedy motel) and "This is Not That" (gay man dying of AIDS comes home to his unfulfilled mother and tiresome sister) bring a vague cruelty and ennui to life in Huston's poetic style.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews