Herluf Kanstrup

Slow start but it picks up speed

Revisado: 01-05-25

It took me awhile to get into this book. The narration felt flat and I didn’t feel involved. At times I thought he kept describing the same event with different words. As I persisted, however, my empathy for the characters increased and it slowly revealed the pain that Robin and all the characters were experiencing. It went from a YA novel to a convincing portrait of the internal lives of young gay teenagers.

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A life time

Revisado: 12-26-24

When the novel started out I didn’t realize how all encompassing this fictional life story would be. He captures the internal and external ambivalences of growing up gay, racially distinct, and talented. The more I listened, the more engrossing the book became. Sorry it had to come to an end…but that’s life.

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Remembering the 60s

Revisado: 09-22-24

I found the title a bit misleading. While it is a love story, it is more of a recent history. The bulk of the book are the recollections of the author and her remarkable husband as they were first hand observers and shapers of events of the 1960s. I am old enough to recall the events she depicts. As such, it is more memory than history.

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A Masterpiece

Revisado: 09-22-24

As a senior gay man who has been both patient and care giver, this book hit very close to the bone. The descriptions of the internal meanderings of the mind as one lay in pain, helpless but coherent, is both very true and amusing by its very veracity. My only complaint is that it ended.

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Needs a family tree

Revisado: 07-17-23

With a long list of names I found it different to keep in mind all the relatives and their kin. I don’t know if the print version included a family tree but the audio lacked one. That said, the family saga is fascinating and awesome. Not always heroic but human even if few people amass a fortune of that proportion.

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An unexpected pleasure

Revisado: 12-21-22

An interesting listen for both the intersecting story lines and the remarkable narration. For readers who want to enter the characters experiences this is your kind of book.

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I remember also

Revisado: 11-02-22

As I am a few years older than the narrator, I also lived through all the crises that are depicted in the book. While the characters in the book have lived through situations that I did not experience, I could still relate to their situations. The ambivalence about the relationship with the music teacher was portrayed with an empathy that made it very alive.
At the conclusion of the book he lists all of our current crises that we face. We managed to get this far through the previous crises. May we be so lucky going forward and still have a civilization.
Strongly recommend this novel.

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Great narration

Revisado: 08-27-22

The book certainly went in different unexpected directions. Overall I liked it. It is usually good not to be able to predict where a novel will take one. The trip was made most enjoyable by the narrator. His different voices and many dialects could have been difficult to follow…and wasn’t.

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A memorable and agonizing experience

Revisado: 05-07-22

What writing! The book is full of original similes and metaphors which bring to mind the scene before the reader. Wonderful writing.
On the down side, be prepared for a depressing, violent story that might not be for everyone’s taste. It is not a book that one “enjoys” so much as appreciates.
The narration is also excellent. He has a Scottish lilt that I found helped to transport me to Scotland while still being able to be understood by this American.

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You had to be there

Revisado: 04-24-22

One of the most enjoyable memoirs I’ve listened/read over the years. I’m a bit older than than Mr Feinstein and not from NYC, but I have lived through the eras he so acutely and humorously describes. It was always a pleasure to remember along with him. And, of course, it wouldn’t have been the same without his voice.

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