enjoyed Lisicky's story tremendously. It's simply damn good writing about growing up in New Jersey in a family that is thoroughly human, with all its warts and flaws showing. (I especially enjoyed his peeks at his father's extended Slovak-American family in Allentown, PA, area.) And fifty years later they all still seem to love each other in spite of whatever differences they might have. If gay writers need a non-threatening poster-child, then Paul Lisicky fits the bill. His lyrical style of writing fits his sensibilities. He knows he's "different," but he simply accepts it and gets on with his life the best he can. Good job, Paul. ( )

I just finished reading FAMOUS BUILDER and am still reveling in your language and the pure physicality of how emotion is expressed in that writing. It took me soooooo long to read because I had to savor every word, and many times reread a line to marvel at it again. I see that you wrote it kind of long ago, so it’s probably weird to be hearing a fan’s notes yea these many years later, but it’s still immediate to me so forgive me if this comes across as oddly fawning and a bit late for the bus. I actually read portions of this around 2003 when I taught an online memoir class and found this book listed on the “recommended” list. I used parts of it then to exemplify precise writing and how to express feelings without ever naming a feeling.
I think it’s so hard to express adolescence without sentimentality or obviousness and especially its undercurrents of disconnectedness mixed with inexplicable yearnings, but this narrator does it with such tenderness through these vignettes of experiences. As a reader I was so moved by the character and his family, his relationship to the things that caught his attention: the iconic home-building (and the joy of street names), the liturgical music career, Mrs. Fox and her furnishings, the clothing and unclothed, the delicate and shifting tensions with his father, places lived, smells smelled, people animated into objects--all rendered so stunningly. As a writer I appreciated the change in tenses and the choices made about using different points of view and how those elements added richness to the story being told, the essayistic quest of each chapter, the threads below that kept circling up to tie it all into a whole, the courage to go there and explore the crevices where our stories reside, the artful words and images, and again, the precision. I can see how short shorts would be attractive to you and why yours are so marvelous. Every word matters. You make every word matter. ( )