The Family of Max Desir Author:Robert Ferro In his 1983 novel "The Family of Max Desir", Robert Ferro offers a powerfully imagined and astonishingly realistic portrait of a gay man and his tight-knit Italian-American family. — Ferro, a member of the legendary New York City circle of gay writers called the Violet Quitt (which also included Andrew Holleran, Felice Picano, and Edmund White), ... more »portrays here the incendiary conflicts that come between a father and son when the mother who acted as a buffer between them succumbs to cancer. Ferro also brings remarkable sensitivity and depth to his depiction of Max's longtime relationship with Nick, his handsome lover.
Called "a stunningly beautiful book" by the Los Angeles Times when it was first published -- and frequently compared with James Agee's "A Death in the Family" -- "The Family of Max Desir" continues to exert its considerable influence on a new generation of writers, exploring the place of gay men and lesbians in families (both nurturing and otherwise) and in the often antagonistic culture at large.« less