Family Dancing

Thirty years ago, David Leavitt first appeared on the literary scene with a gutsy story collection that stunned readers and reviewers. Just twenty-three, he was hailed as a prodigy of sorts: “remarkably gifted” (The Washington Post), with “a genius for empathy” (The New York Times Book Review) and “a knowledge of others'' lives . . . that a writer twice his age might envy” (USA Today). “Regardless...