- Home
- Books
- The City and the Pillar
- Sergeant Kervinski

Sergeant Kervinski
An Army sergeant attracted to Jim while he and Jim navigate military secrecy.
Sexual contact without exposing himself inside military life.
The book

Who they are in the book
Spoiler-freeKervinski is a sergeant at Jim’s Colorado base.
His attraction to Jim exists inside an institution officially organized around heterosexual masculinity.
He shows that same-sex desire remains present even where disclosure is dangerous.
How the book draws them
- WatchfulSecrecy shapes the way he approaches other men.
- MilitaryRank and discipline frame his behavior.
- Attracted to JimHis interest is clearer than Jim’s interest in him.
- Institutionally constrainedThe Army makes recognition risky rather than impossible.
If you like The City and the Pillar
If you like Gore Vidal
Explore authors with a similar voice, perspective, and influence.

Ernest Hemingway
Author of The Sun Also Rises and A Moveable Feast; his pared-down style, developed in 1920s Paris, became the most imitated in American prose.
View author
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
The doctor of the Paris slums who wrote the century's blackest, funniest novel — and changed the sound of French prose.
View author
Henry Miller
The Brooklyn dropout who arrived in Paris broke at thirty-eight and wrote the exuberant, banned books that ended American censorship.
View author



