Title: Haakon Author: C.F. Griffin Published by: Crowell, 1978 ISBN: 0-690-01703-0 [trade paperback , 296 pages]
Haakon is an extraordinary novel about a man's quest for self-acceptance. It delineates his passage from fear to freedom, from circumspection to affirmation in a time -- not all that long ago -- when homosexuals could opt for either notoriety or secret shame. But Haakon will cleave longest to memory as the achingly romantic story of an authentic, thwarted love.
World War II has ended and Pvt. Haakon Hvitfeldt, forty-five, returns from the front to resume his position as professor of history at a university in New York. Liberator of prison camps without survivors, participant in the conflagrations of which academic history is neatly composed, Haakon is no longer sure of the facts. And after three years in the army, masquerading as straight -- relieved only by brief, bittersweet furloughs with his longtime lover, the flamboyant photographer Simon Foster -- Haakon is no longer sure of himself. For he has fallen in love with Dan, a young heterosexual main he befriended in the army.
Haakon's return to civilian life exacerbates his conflicts. His existence is rent into public and private selves, and he cannot dwell wholly in either. Under the pressure of society's -- and his own -- expectations, Haakon is unable to decipher the promptings of his heart. His allegiance is divided among the perverse attachment to Simon -- elusive, inscrutable, "serene as a Renaissance angel"; the freely given devotion of Dan, who seeks out Haakon in New York; and the sanctioned "love of a good woman." Initially a diverting companion to be escorted to social functions, Ellen becomes a beacon in Haakon's life; her grace and uncomplicated love draw Haakon's affection and, ultimately, his passion. That this passion is not as great as any he has known with the men he had loved seems a small price to pay for the refuge she offers -- until Simon suddenly reappears, home from his travels.
Rarely have the scents, tastes, and textures, the joys and anguish of intimacy, memory, and loss been so richly evoked as in this luminous, haunting novel.
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