A Place I’ve Never Been was published by Viking in 1990. The collection’s title story follows a woman whose gay best friend has become so paralyzed by AIDS anxiety that he cannot have sex, cannot touch anyone, cannot live — and her gradual realization that she cannot help him, that his fear has become impenetrable to comfort. The story captures a particular moment in the epidemic: when the threat was known but the virus was not yet fully understood, and fear metastasized into paralysis.
Other stories explore adjacent territories: a couple whose relationship is destroyed by one partner’s compulsive sexual behavior; a woman who falls in love with a gay man; a family attempting to absorb the news of a son’s homosexuality; expatriates in Italy negotiating cultural and sexual difference. The stories share Leavitt’s characteristic concerns — the gap between what people want and what they can say, the inadequacy of available languages for desire, the way families function as both support and constraint.
The prose is quieter than in Family Dancing — more mature, more controlled, more willing to let silence do the work. Leavitt had developed, by 1990, a style of extraordinary restraint: his stories withhold more than they reveal, and the reader must attend closely to what is not said.
The collection was well received as a mature development of the talent that Family Dancing had announced, and confirmed Leavitt’s position as one of the leading short story writers of his generation.
Collecting A Place I’ve Never Been
First edition (Viking, New York, 1990): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $15–$35
- Very good/very good: $5–$15