Ostensibly about a young queer man in Manhattan, “Greenland” is also a novel of identity and place, but it is less about claiming one’s own territory than deciding who gets to come inside. But not since Iris Murdoch’s “The Philosopher’s Pupil” have I read a novel crammed full of so many ideas and tropes that they threaten to spill out of its margins.
David Santos Donaldson’s debut, “ Greenland,” is certainly both. The novel-within-a-novel is nothing new nor is the novel-as-time-spanning-cultural-interrogation. If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from, whose fees support independent bookstores.
