Landscape with Traveler — Barry Gifford

Landscape with Traveler: The Pillow Book of Francis Reeves is Barry Gifford's first full-length novel. In print for the first time in fifteen years, Landscape with Traveler is written as the protagonist's diary -- inspired by the first century Japanese writer Sei Shōnagon's pillow book -- and structured as three acclaimed short novels bound into one volume. The book recounts the deep friendship between a middle-aged gay man and a young straight man through vignette-like entries, all the while tracing a history of the US from the 1930s through 1970s.
 
Laying bare the themes that have marked his lifelong career: a winsome, beat-inspired frenzy of love, a generation-defining crossroads in American history -- the novel tells an honest story of a male homosexual life.