Peter and Rebecca Harris are 40ish, upper-class SoHo Manhattanites, invited to all the right parties, friends with the right people, living in an apartment where all the right art and furniture are on display. The set is just so, the actors know their lines, but something about the script isn't quite working.
Peter is an art dealer; Rebecca an editor. When the story begins, Rebecca is apologizing to Peter because Mizzy is coming to stay. Mizzy, short for "The Mistake," is Rebecca's 23-year-old brother, Ethan. What the ramifications are of being called a mistake for all of one's life may only be guessed at, but the fact is that Mizzy is a mess. A gorgeous mess. He has been in Japan contemplating stones for a month and feels that he has learned all he can from that exercise. It was "Beautiful. Inconclusive." He is allowed these forays because he has always been overindulged by his parents and his sisters, compensation for not having time for him. He has been an addict for years, in and out of rehab, but now claims to be clean and sober. Rebecca is a nervous wreck about his addiction and, indeed, the very first night in the Harrises' flat, he calls a dealer to deliver drugs to him. Peter hears the transaction and doesn't tell Rebecca. This sets up a situation that very soon comes home to roost.
Peter is a seeker after beauty, wherever it may be found; in a person, a piece of music, a work of art. He has had a hard time loving his daughter, Bea, from whom he is mostly estranged, because she is not beautiful and has thick ankles in the bargain. Their telephone conversations are painful; Bea full of anger, Peter conciliatory and begging Bea to tell him that he was a good father. Now, with the ennui of settled middle age, he sees in Ethan a perfection of beauty that dazzles and seduces him. Ethan resembles Rebecca, but with the taut body and careless nonchalance of youth. Peter's infatuation is not lost on Ethan; indeed, in his manipulative, underhanded way, he capitalizes on it.
The homoerotic tension between the two men is palpable. Cunningham is a past master at exploring gender-bending realities and bicurious relationships; here he is at his best. The rest of the story falls away as the connection between Peter and Ethan takes center stage. What flows from it, in Cunningham's perfect rendering, is poignant and heartbreaking. --Valerie Ryan
Shelf Talker: Michael Cunningham, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Pen/Faulkner Award for The Hours, has crafted a meditation on beauty, love and the love of beauty above all else.