Every couple has their own dictionary: all those shared moments lead to a secret language that can be utterly incomprehensible to the outside observer. These lovers’ dictionaries are continually evolving, and are perfect for tracing the trajectory of a romance (and not to mention those cringe-worthy pet names).  David Levithan’s latest novel, The Lover’s Dictionary, does exactly this. Divided into a series of brief alphabetically arranged entries, each headed with an evocative single-word title, the book follows the ups and downs of a relationship between two unnamed characters. Certainly, the method is a trope, but in Levithan’s capable hands it’s one that is, with the exception of a few slightly melodramatic or extraneous bits and pieces, close to flawless.

Levithan captures so perfectly the events that transform a nervous acquaintance into a tentative relationship into full-blown coupledom, and his laconic style allows this path to be traced with surprising narrative elegance. It’s not a linear narrative, and we see hints of a darker future amidst the rosy explorations of those earlier entries. Much of the book relies on allusion and on elision, with the reader forced to do much of the legwork to fill in those meaningful gaps. After all, it’s the pauses and hesitations that are often more meaningful than words themselves. And Levithan certainly doesn’t shirk this fact, doing everything he can to exploit it. Dark, challenging entries are juxtaposed against whimsy and XKCD-like observations to moving contrast, and while there are moments where it’s a little blatant (the repeated entries regarding one lover’s infidelity being a case in point), for the most part it’s highly effective.

Levithan’s incisiveness is perhaps what surprised me most about this book. There are so many painfully familiar moments in it: those ambiguities, ambivalences, those moments of self-loathing and self-doubt that are inevitable in any relationship. All of those tiny turning points in a relationship are somehow captured in this concise little tome. And oh, it’s so easy to see oneself popping up here and there in its pages (although perhaps that’s my inner narcissist preeningly rearing its head). It’s a saddening, maddening book in so many ways: it’s not so much a dissection of a failed relationship as the analysis of a psyche determined to remain in an increasingly desultory relationship out of sheer determination to make things work. But Levithan’s wit and irreverence stop it from becoming a book with which to drink away one’s sorrows, which makes it a refreshing entrant in the world of relationship  narratives. It doesn’t moon, it isn’t platitudinous: it just is.

Perhaps what I liked most about this novel is its confounding of archetypes and othering. Levithan neither names his characters nor gives anything away regarding gender. Perhaps due to my fleeting familiarity with Levithan and his other work, I read this under the assumption that both characters were male, but having done a quick google, it turns out that almost everyone else has defaulted to a male/female heterosexual relationship. It’s a touch saddening to realise this, and there’s certainly opportunity for a dialogue here. But while the story is all about the universality of love (and its myriad related conditions, afflictions, and emotions), a part of me wishes that Levithan had screwed the Irving Goffman bit and gone on record.

All in all, this is a refreshing, wonderful little volume that you’ll delight in dipping in and out of–if you don’t devour the thing like I did. It’s simultaneously sparse and sumptuous, incisive and irreverent, but it’s always human. A great read.

Rating: Superb

With thanks to Text Publishing for the review copy

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Other books by David Levithan: