Leap Year

Thank heavens for the recognition of Peter Cameron as a major novelist. Has this taken over 20 years? This wonderful book, Leap Year, is a snapshot of the late 80's, most definitely rooted in that time. Books set in NY hold a special appeal -- with the limitless combination of personalities, how they intersect and ensnarl. The City acts not so much as a backdrop as a character. Each character is vibrantly brought to life, with snatches of laugh out loud humor. ("[She] knew better than to fall apart on the street. Only common people fell apart on the street. She would do it in Bonwit's.") Lorrie Moore, in a recent interview in San Francisco, referred to Cameron while discussing her "day job" as a reviewer. She was musing over the fact that Cameron was considered a "niche" author, which surprised her. Nowadays the inclusion of mixed races and sexual orientations are taken for granted in pop culture. And thank heavens it has finally arrived.

Great fun. I have bought all of Cameron's works. I love the pace of his books, I love the melody in the writing, the tone, the character struggles to keep it (or at least some of "it") together... This book I read last, when, I think, it was one of his first, it seems more optimistic, maybe just sillier, younger, less mature

I wanted to read the book a chapter at a time, the way it originally appeared, but I could not. I gulped it all down in two sittings. (It's not my fault: it's not only wise and funny but definitely a "page-turner.") Most of the characters ultimately prove to be better than they seemed. As in his later books, Cameron creates a range of interesting characters (female and male, gay and straight). That he can make New Yorkers sympathetic shows either great imagination or great skill! I even felt some sympathy for the unredeemed villainess and the two weak men she used in nefarious plots.Like Armistead Maupin's tales of an interlinked but diverse cast of mostly young San Franciscans a decade earlier, Cameron's tales of New Yorkers in their early 30s are not sexually graphic. There are a few hints, but mostly it is relationships and love, not sex, that is his subject. Drugs are also invisible.A lot happens to Cameron's characters and I was sorry to leave them behind when I reached the end.

A new (yet old) book by Peter Cameron! What a pleasant surprise. He wrote Leap Year in the 1980's for the short-lived NYC weekly "7-days." The novel reads quickly but has all the compassion and intelligence of his other works. These are characters that you will not soon forget.

Peter Cameron's Leap Year has one terrible flaw: it ends. After about the second page, one realizes this will be a problem. This is the sort of book that should be, oh, 1,200 pages or so. At least. Alas, It's a tight, beautifully crafted book with not a wasted word among the graceful bunch. It's hillarious, so be forewarned; you will laugh out loud, often. You may be the only laughing person on the bus or in the Dentist's reception area, and you should expect the stares in advance. The people he creates are people you wish you knew. You will feel the same sadness I felt when you don't see their names on the speed-dial button on your phone. And it took all the willpower I have not to read it all at once, but to make it last. It lasted two days. Leap Year is the kind of book that makes you wish you had a minor head injury after reading, so that you could turn around and read it again, fresh. Another amazing thing about the book is that despite being so hillariou! s, it's very poetic. You'll pull your head back from the page more than once and appreciate the line you just read. Think: Sylvia Plath on Prozac. This book has many twists and turns, and many different notes, none of them, not a single one, false.