Books: “Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style”
Everybody’s who’s read Paul Rudnick knows him from his New Yorker humor columns. Oh, you don’t? Well, perhaps you’ve seen “Sister Act” with Whoopi Goldberg or “Addams Family Values” with Anjelica Huston. He wrote those movies too.
In “Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style,” he demonstrates he’s also a novelist who can not only think big but write seriously. It’s a chronicle of what it meant to be gay—from the early 1970s through the present. Complete with relentless witty asides along the way. Thank Heavens.
When young Nate Reminger, a schlubby little guy from Piscataway NJ (adjacent to my hometown of Middlesex), is a freshman at Yale, he is spotted from across campus by the eponymous Farrell Covington, a fellow freshman who is a stylish, haute-WASP cross between Robert Redford and the young Stephen Collins. Farrell is however captivated by Nate, especially his raccoon coat. On that note, a 50-year romance begins.
Farrell and Nate gather a coterie of oddball friends around them at Yale. They also decide to live together in Farrell’s swanky off-campus digs. This romantic idyll comes to an end when the wealthy Covington family gets wind of their son’s “proclivities” and ban Nate from Farrell’s life. (The Covingtons are a thinly veiled version of the Kochs, down to their Wichita roots and extractive industries fortune. They’re a recurring element in the novel—a combination of a Mafia crime family and the bad guys in a Muppet movie.)
Eventually after college, the guys reunite. Nate begins writing plays that do well on Broadway and that attract the attention of Hollywood. Farrell joins him out in Los Angeles but the two are quickly underwhelmed by West Coast types. “Studio casting sessions are like bar fights for guys who get pedicures and yowl at their private chefs. ("I can't taste the cilantro, Zach! We've talked about this!”)
Flash forward to the 1980s when the AIDS crisis rears its ugly head, and many of the couple’s friends begin to die. There are happy moments, however, including trips to Fire Island. As they ride to the Pines on the ferry from Sayville, Farrell snarks, "This is invigorating…it's like how gay men first came to America." Eventually we reach the 2020s, and see how mature gay couples in their 60s deal with earnest wide-eyed gender-neutral Gen Z’s in their 20s. That’s pretty spot-on.
“Farrell” is a lovely, often touching novel and filled with so many one-liners. the mind reels, often with jealousy. I hope it hits the best-seller list because it gives Central Jersey a better point of reference than as an exit on the New Jersey Turnpike.
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