At Home with the Glynns

The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy #6

by Eric Kraft

Kraft's most inventive and downright fun novel yet. "A real delight. Peter Leroy's world shines through just like childhood both tiny and enormous, full of mystery and wonder."--Robert Plunket, New York Times Book Review. Black-and-white photographs.

Genres: Fiction

179 pages, Hardcover

First published May 16, 1995

About the author

Eric Kraft grew up in Babylon, New York, on the South Shore of Long Island, where he was for a time co-owner and co-captain of a clam boat, which sank. He met or invented the character Peter Leroy while dozing over a German lesson during his first year at Harvard. The following year, he married his muse, Madeline Canning; they have two sons. After earning a Master’s Degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Kraft taught school in the Boston area for a while, moonlighting as a rock music critic for the Boston Phoenix. Since then, he has undertaken a variety of hackwork to support the Kraft ménage and the writing of the voluminous work of fiction that he calls The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy. He has been the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts; was, briefly, chairman of PEN New England; and has been awarded the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature.

Reviews

[Peter Burns · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I have mentioned before, Kraft is serializing all of his books along with commentary on each installment. I have read all of his books, but long enough ago that I don’t remember much when I am re-reading. For many years Kraft has been one of my favorite writers. It is something of a mystery that he is not more well known. In this book, the main character, Peter Leroy, has a romantic relationship with the Glynn Twins. The outline of the plot does not do justice to the many ideas that Kraft explores. He often references books, movies and art work. From his references it seems that we have both read many of the same books. He is a big fan of Proust and so am I. Peter’s wife’s name is Albertine which is the name of the woman Marcel falls for in his masterpiece. Recently I started reading In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, volume two of In Search of Lost Time. In this section of the novel Marcel is still infatuated with a girl named Gilberte but later in the book he meets and falls in love with Albertine.