Matthew Stadler

An excellent debut work that, through the lens of a homoerotic teen's diary or sketchbook, brilliantly portrays the atmosphere of San Francisco in the year 1915. With Maxwell, the narrator, his totally modern parents, and the allure of San Francisco during its second flowering—the glimmering years between the disaster of 1906 and the sobering effects of World War I—Stadler succeeds in a magnificent way. When Max visits the Pacific Exposition with his best friend Duncan, the son of a Persian sculptor, the prose is flavored with historical detail and childlike joy. Yet tragedy strikes early when Max's father crosses the Bay to Bolinas to continue his bird-watching hobby.

Memory and dreams seem to fill this novel with a unique atmosphere. It seems like there is always something that is just beyond the horizon, a fleeting suggestion of the unknown. The combination of dramatic adult changes in circumstances contrasts with the growing young love between the two boys. The beautiful prose style and the effective narrative reminded me of William Maxwell's The Folded Leaf or John Knowles' A Separate Peace. This was an engrossing novel that deserves to be saluted for both the complexity of its themes and the author's lyricism.… (mais)

"¿De qué sirve ser un niño si creces para convertirte en un hombre, de qué sirve?"
En la primera sección de la novela, el protagonista pierde su trabajo de profesor debido a una falsa acusación de seducir a un estudiante de décimo grado. A continuación, seduce al estudiante y, una vez hecho, parte de viaje a Francia. En Francia asume el nombre de un amigo, 'Herbert', y se hace pasar por un comisario que busca dibujos perdidos de Allan Stein.

El protagonista usa su nueva identidad para acercarse al hijo de sus anfitriones, un malhumorado joven de 15 años llamado Stéphane. El narrador proyecta en Stéphane un recuerdo idealizado de su propia infancia, cuando visitó Francia con su madre a los 16 años. Encantado tanto por la madre de Stéphane como por su hijo.

Después de dos semanas, el narrador logra convertir a Stéphane en su amante, y los dos huyen juntos al sur de Francia. Pero Stéphane regresa con sus padres cuando descubre que el narrador ha mentido sobre su nombre. Solo en este punto el lector descubre el verdadero nombre del narrador: Mateo.… (mais)

Deventer is a small city in the Netherlands with just under 100,000 residents—the equivalent of a Flint, Michigan, or Kenosha, Wisconsin, in population terms. The city is an unlikely setting for what is described as a novel-like retelling of two projects, one architectural and one urban planning, both on sites of hospitals and both involving Matthijs Bouw and his firm One Architecture. Bouw is also an unlikely choice, but novelist Matthew Stadler’s interests lie in the architect’s unique working process and the resulting interactions between Bouw, the clients, and the residents of Deventer.

Stadler’s narrative treatment of the true events around the two projects takes liberty with time, just one of the ways that the book departs from more traditional architectural history to make the architectural process accessible to a wider audience. As one example, Stadler visits the completed architectural project near the beginning of the book, heading back in time later in the book to discuss how Bouw and company designed their intervention. The future of the urban planning project is less certain, stemming from a number of factors, including the economic problems taking place at the time (post–2008), the desire of the developers to take their winning bid and depart from Bouw’s brilliant yet highly prescriptive plan, and the fact that masterplans typically leave room for change in architecture and other forms (think of Daniel Libeskind’s winning masterplan for the World Trade Center site compared to what is being built today).

While the highly specific projects and scenarios revolving around Matthijs Bouw mean this book cannot serve as a template for narrative treatments of other buildings, it does illustrate that architecture can be made interesting for wider consumption. Films, TV shows, books, and other forms of narration prefer doctors, lawyers, police, and other life-or-death professions, to the chagrin of architects who find what they do just as fascinating. Architectural projects unfold through myriad conflicts and compromises by a large and complex cast of characters; the decisions that occur along the way may not be life or death, but their influence is great and last for years and decades. If there is one thing that can be exported from Stadler’s enjoyable story it is the value in having somebody from outside the architectural profession observe and document the process, so that other books would appeal to more than just architects and—like Deventer—be cognizant of the people who will ultimately occupy an architect’s creation.

(The above review was written for Designers & Books and published on their website on December 5, 2013.)… (mais)