The quips never stop in Paul Rudnick’s Farrell Covington and The Limits of Style. It’s buoyant and comic and bounces along, while genuinely moving the reader with a heartrending love story immersed in gay life from the 70’s to the present. Rudnick’s life as playwright and screenwriter informs the whole thing with authority and wit.
Sample the following lines to wet your appetite. It’s not Oscar Wilde. It’s not Quentin Crisp. It’s all pure Rudnick.
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… there are only at most three people on the planet who can get away with wearing all white, and Farrell was at least two of them.
That’s the real gift of being young. You have no taste. You’re indiscriminately horny. You want to fuck everything.
… a pretty white brick wedding cake of a building…
Rebekah’s many Tonys were grouped on a bookshelf, while her Oscar towered over them, as their Hollywood scoutmaster. I thought, She’s got almost enough awards for a really special menorah.
.. I’d advanced another square in my board game of maturity.
Farrell occasionally introduced himself as ‘Hi, I’m Farrell AIDS and I have Covington.’
Gray hair is the beige of old age.
A Day Like All Days 