Recommendations from our site
“It’s not a remarkable story, but it’s a universal story of people in their twenties and early thirties. It captures that period of life when you are free and adult but freedom can feel very heavy and frightening, that moment when you are still innocent and vulnerable, open to the world and quite alone as well. You’re also trying to discover yourself and who you are. It’s a kind of fuzzy moment, when you’re anything and everything and nothing at the same time. It’s a very confusing moment. Seth captures that confusion and a certain loneliness of the soul which is why we search for love, beautifully. That is the genius of the book – its universality.” Read more...
Radhika Jha, Novelist
“The Golden Gate is modeled on Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin. A novel in iambic pentameter might sound like an overly intellectual bore, but it’s far from it. It’s rife with pathos and acute observations about the yuppies that began descending on the Bay Area in the 1980s. And it has a real story that pulls you in as the verse pulls you along…The sonnet form allows Seth to turn on a dime from one character to another. From techie to lawyer to artist, he includes the whole modern cast of characters. You marvel at how he does it. There is not a wasted word, and his wit shines through the whole time.” Read more...
Armistead Maupin, Novelist
