7.8 /10 1 Votes
Language English Pages 376 pp OCLC 38150357 Publisher St. Martin's Press | 3.9/5 Goodreads Publication date August 1998 ISBN 978-0-312-18675-3 Originally published August 1998 Genre Novel Country United States of America | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Media type Print (Hardback) & Paperback Awards Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction Similar Mark Merlis books, Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction winners, Novels | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
An Arrow's Flight (ISBN 978-0-312-24288-6) is a novel by Mark Merlis, published in 1998.
Contents
Plot summary
Pyrrhus lives in the city with his housemate Leucon. He works as a waiter, then as a hustler. One day he hears his father Achilles has left him some inheritance in Troy, and he decides to claim it. On the ship, he sleeps with Corythus, a sailor. He soon learns he needs to seduce Philoctetes and get his bow for a prophecy to come true. He grows attached to the old man, though the latter also has an affair with Paris. Finally, Philoctetes breaks the bow. Pyrrhus meets Leucon again in a hospital where Pyrrhus is waiting to see his lover Philoctetes, who is very sick; the latter realizes he no longer has feelings for Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus understands that he has grown and accepted his sexuality and is able to live openly, something Leucon cannot do. (The novel hints that he probably never will.)