The threads holding The Night Listener together include questions of truth and illusion; the complexities of romantic love (with doses of eroticism thrown in here and there); the alternately strong and tenuous bonds between father and son, which include bonds between Gabriel and his own father and his newly fabricated "son" Peter; an unsettling awareness of aging at mid-life. Half-way through the book, The Night Listener begins to read like a mystery--does Peter really exist? Did his adoptive mother Donna write the memoir? Does she assume Peter's identity during the long phone conversations? Is this a hoax or does Donna have a multiple personality disorder?

In a back-and-forth between the building mystery and other present-day concerns, Gabriel ruminates on his breakup from Jess and Jess's newfound relationships and lifestyle (Jess is HIV positive but is doing extraordinarily well on a new cocktail), his ongoing difficulties with his obnoxious father, and a troubling bout of writer's block--in other words, mid-life angst on both personal and professional fronts. The conversations between Gabriel and Peter are some of the best writing in the book, which includes Peter's (or is it Donna's impersonation?) painful memories of sexual abuse, Gabriel's confessional tone with this boy-stranger, Peter's precocious teasing about Gabriel's sexuality, and strange omissions leading to further doubt about Peter's existence once the idea had been planted. Maupin clearly did not intend the book to be a close examination of living with AIDS, but rather a story of loss, spiced as a page-turning mystery.