Casanova 20 - by Davey Davis (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Cursed by an extreme and unrelenting beauty, Adrian has drawn the frenzied attention of adoring strangers since childhood. As a twenty-nine-year-old in New York City, he spends his days drifting between affairs with women (and occasionally men) who provide him with everything he needs, from spending money to luxurious vacations to even, once, a mini yacht. With this generosity comes a dangerous possessiveness that often puts him at risk of much worse than heartbreak. But as people begin removing their masks in the spring of 2021, Adrian's aimless sexual availability is interrupted by a shocking discovery: He is no longer beautiful.

Across the country, Adrian's best friend and companion, Mark, a world-famous painter, has returned to the family home in rural Northern California. He's faced with his own horrible revelation: He's dying from the same mysterious disease that will soon take his mother and sister.

Despite the depth of their platonic romance, neither man reveals his fate to the other. Feeling as if he's disappearing from sight, Adrian searches for answers among his thousands of lovers. In a race against his failing body, Mark becomes obsessed with watching fifty-two VHS tapes of unknown origin, left to him by his sister, before it's too late.

"An astounding writer, seemingly unconstrained by taboos and waist-deep down in the maw of life" (Torrey Peters), Davey Davis presents a modern-day Casanova figure grappling with what it means to find true intimacy when his very existence means constant exposure to the world's violent desire.

Review Quotes

"It would be unwise . . . to miss out on this one." --Calvin Kasulke, Literary Hub

"Casanova 20 is another stunner from one of the great writers of haunting fiction for our violent, sick, sometimes beautiful world. Davis has written a melancholy, lonely, fully embodied novel about art and desire and the self and how people get through. I was spellbound by every page of this uneasy and utterly surprising book." --Lydia Kiesling, author of Mobility

"Davey Davis is a master of moods, beauty rippling into unease like--as in one of Davis's own metaphors--a firework display reflected on dark and shifting water." --Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby

"Enrapturing, entrancing dual narrative about bodily betrayals both real and imagined, fixation, neurosis, beauty, charisma, hotness, youth, death, impermanence, needs, wants, desire, regret, being proactive, being a vector, asking and not asking for what you actually want, and being and not being gay--sometimes at the same time!" --Harron Walker, author of Aggregated Discontent

"What if you were unbearably hot for your entire life and one day, without warning, it stopped? One half of Davey Davis's third novel, Casanova 20 explores one straight man's grief over this conundrum, while the other side plays the story of an older gay painter watching his mother, sister, and then himself succumb to an unexplained but fatal illness. These two men's lives braid into each other while the world experiences the mass upheaval and grief of the covid pandemic. Davis is, as always, sharp and unexpected, even as they dig into themes around sex and illness that have infused their prior novels X and the earthquake room. Personally, I can't wait to see how some readers will misread the characters in this one--particularly the question of Adrian's sexuality and how to categorize the intimacy between the two leads. As with everything else in the novel, the answers are both straightforward and mysterious. It turns out twink death can happen to straights, too." --Morgan M. Page, cowriter of Framing Agnes and Boys Don't Cry

About the Author