Benderson was wandering Budapest researching sex clubs for Nerve. com when he fell in love. Romulus, a Romanian street hustler, was a sleekly attractive, uneducated (though clever) 24-year old (significantly younger than Benderson), into soccer, TV and swapping dirty stories with his buddies. Living in a largely homophobic culture, Romulus didn't consider himself anything but heterosexual, even as he spent months having sex with Benderson. As Benderson (author of two novels, including User
, as well as some nonfiction) slid into an obsession with Romulus, he started reading about Romanians whose lives and loves seemed curiously tangential: the artist Brancusi; the novelist Istrati; the lascivious King Carol II and his Jewish lover, Lupescu. Sometimes, Benderson and Romulus drove around the Romanian countryside, exploring villages mired between pastoral paganism and socialist realism. Weaving storytelling and seduction, Benderson's tale has a deliciously Arabian Nights
flavor. His descriptions—the fat Ukrainian bartender with "fast, greedy fingers" and "predatory" hospitality—render scenes so three-dimensional, readers will be checking for their wallets. While some may be derailed by the unsafe sex and Benderson's back-to-the-closet erotics, anyone—gay or straight—who's able to read a painfully honest account of an obsessive love affair without feeling they need to judge the author will be rewarded. This Prix de Flore winner could be Benderson's American breakthrough book. (Feb.)
