“Closs’ story paints an inviting picture of ’90s New York. Subway tokens are on the way out and email is on the way in. Bookstores abound, and no one stares at a cellphone on a night out. Place in this world likable characters like Harry and Jay, and the stage is set for an enjoyable drama about unrequited love… A realistic and engaging love story in a finely illustrated setting.”
“Beatitude is a story that expertly straddles the line between fiction and nonfiction and carries the same genes and underpinnings as a Kerouac novel. For those who want a heartfelt, human look into the complexities of friendship and love, this book is an excellent choice. For those who love the Beats, this book is a treasure trove.”
“Intimate and moving, and with its 90s setting presenting the tail-end of the Beat generation’s presence on the public stage, Larry Closs has written an intriguing fable about how people can sometimes become confused by the intensity of their passions.”
— Emmet O’Cuana, A Book a Day Till I Can Stay
“And that’s the heart of Beatitude: the reminder that love is love, regardless of whether it’s romantic or platonic. Larry Closs weaves together a beautiful and complicated narrative around this idea. He’s created a novel that shouldn’t be pigeonholed as any one thing: as a love story; LGBT lit; a memorial to the Beats; a book about NYC. Because it’s all those things and more. There are multiple layers to the story Closs has given us, and it’d be a mistake to allow ourselves to get caught up in just one.”
— Tara Olmsted, BookSexy
“In Harry Charity, Larry Closs has written a character who yearns not just for love but to understand love and the place it has in his life. This story is a romance and not a romance. Love, true and forever love, can take forms other than romantic… Five stars for this excellent, well-written story.”
— TimInCalifornia, Gay Story Reviews
“Beatitude is a fine, poetic book, full of insight and sumptuous writing—perfect for meditation on love and friends.”
— Jerry Wheeler, Out in Print
“Beatitude, simply put, is an exceptionally well-written debut that explores love in all its varied forms, dissecting what it is to love.”
— Lori Hettler, The Next Best Book Blog
“Closs’ apparent familiarity with the subject matter, skillful depiction of New York and incorporation of real events (such as poetry readings and museum exhibits) and people lend the book an appealing sense of authenticity.”
— Jameson Fitzpatrick, Next Magazine
“An endearing debut novel about aspects of love and connection set against the continuing legacy of the Beat Generation.”
— John McFarland, Shelf Awareness
“Beatitude is not a romance but this doesn’t mean it is not a love story… It’s bittersweet but not sad… Very easy to read… You arrive at the end end with a feeling you would not have minded more.”
— Elisa Rolle, Elisa Reviews
“A daring, honest writer with a gritty urban flair, who brings the reader into the new worlds he has created.”
— David Amram, composer, conductor, musician
“There is a thrill when you read something so real, so true, that you’re never taken out of the moment by a contrived line or joke. You’re there, in that moment with the characters, living that life. That’s why we read in the first place.”
— Conor Grennan, author of the international bestseller, Little Princes
“Larry Closs’s Beatitude is a sharp, smart novel with a human voice and some neat interweavings of memory and the present. Set in the recent past in a largely gay milieu in the media world of Manhattan, it avoids the usual posing or pretentiousness of fiction located in that hip, midtown mode. Rather, it is a story whose narrator has warmth and it is driven by a dialogue that is convincing and engaging. But the book is more than just a tale of quotidian romance in the upper storeys of a bejewelled urban isle—it also makes regular reference to the Beat Generation writers which drew me in still further. It opens as Harry, the storyteller, and his friend Jay go searching on a grail-like mission to view Jack Kerouac’s legendary Original Scroll for his most famous novel On the Road and the book proper then commences with an almost direct reference to the opening lines of Kerouac’s own signature text. Yet Beatitude, which takes its title from Kerouac’s extension of the word Beat to embrace notions of the saintly and also incorporates some unpublished fragments of poetry by that other Beat giant Allen Ginsberg in its pages, is more than a mere derivative homage. It is an authentic contemporary account, enlightened by appealing Beat details, but its main strength is in its ability to convey plausible conversations between its believable dramatis personae.”
— Dr. Simon Warner, Beatnicity, Lecturer, Popular Music Studies, School of Music, University of Leeds
“Beatitude is an unusual novel by Larry Closs about two young men’s search for the meaning of Beat literature during the 1990s. The heroes of the novel pore over the Jack Kerouac scrolls in the New York Public Library, have a piquant encounter with elderly Allen Ginsberg, and struggle with the epic dimensions of their own changing friendship. This novel reminds me very much of my own travels in post-Beat New York City during the 1990s.”
— Levi Asher, Literary Kicks
“Closs masterfully uses dialogue to give us his story and it is dialogue that is filled with passion and the joy of the men discovering a mutual attraction for a time gone by and for each other. We look at fascination for the ideal, the place where we want to be able to be even though we know we may never reach it. I really loved seeing everything fall into place and the way Closs is able to relate that we suffer from wanting what cannot be. This is a human story that is gorgeously rendered and it shows the vulnerability that we all face. Most important is the idea that love is everywhere and it can be ours if we are willing to have it.”
— Amos Lassen, Reviews by Amos Lassen
“Closs, who has done a great deal of research on the subject, seamlessly weaves Beat history and literature into his novel—just enough for the cognoscenti, but not so much as to overwhelm newcomers to the Beat Generation.”
— Martha E. Stone, The Gay and Lesbian Review
“I loved, loved, loved it! Beatitude has some sad moments that brought me to tears but it also had some very touching moments that made me smile. It’s definitely bittersweet, at the same time it’s a heartwarming story of what real friendship and love can be. Larry Closs has written a wonderful story that is multi-layered but he effortlessly interweaves those layers into something that is special… I found myself never wanting this story to end.”
— Monika Vig, World of Diversity Fiction
“If you are a Kerouac aficionado you’ll love this book as much as I do. Trust me—and check it out!”
— Dave Moore, Beat Scholar