Gould: A Novel in Two Novels

In his new book, Gould, Dixon draws a portrait of a man through his romantic and sexual involvements, as well as one of modern American life over the last forty years. The novel is itself a series of portraits, something like a retrospective of years of self-portraits, which chart with telling accuracy all the emotional, physical, and sexual changes Gould undergoes. By turns comic and deeply touching, Gould shows Dixon at his finest: a bravura performance delineating the leaping arc of love - and, all too often, the miscarriage of that love - that is part and parcel of the arc of the life of a representative modern man.