It’s true that there’s something sad about the fact that David Leavitt’s short stories’ sole description of some characters is that their T-shirts have certain brand names on them. But the fact is that, for most of Leavitt’s educated young readership, members of a generation raised and nourished on messages equating what one consumes with who one is, Leavitt’s descriptions really do do the job. In our post-1950s, inseparable-from-TV association pool, brand loyalty really is synecdochic of character; this is simply a fact.
