I hated this book. It had all the claustrophobia and ickiness of "Eileen" without any of the suspense or fun. It wasn't clear what half of the charactI hated this book. It had all the claustrophobia and ickiness of "Eileen" without any of the suspense or fun. It wasn't clear what half of the characters were doing in the book, none of them were likeable, and it was anticlimactic. Would not recommend....more
I love Billy Porter--how could you not? He's so unapologetically himself, and a numinous human being. But for a lot of this book I was thinking this wI love Billy Porter--how could you not? He's so unapologetically himself, and a numinous human being. But for a lot of this book I was thinking this was a solid 3. It felt like it could use some editing at times, and one gets the impression from the book that Porter is not one to suffer edits to his work.
But the end of the book chronicles Porter's meteoric rise to fame in way that endeared and inspired. Porter is a triumph of a person--to grow up Black and poor and unequivocally queer in this country is an immense burden for anyone to survive, and throw on top of it that Porter survived sexual abuse, became HIV+, and nearly lost his chance for America to see how amazing he truly is so many times, and you begin to understand the miracle it is for someone in his shoes to thrive.
And thank gawd he did, because the world is a more interesting and beautiful world with his artistry in it....more
A pretty interesting history of Uruguay over the past fifty or so years, as seen through the lives of five queer women who form a commune of sorts in A pretty interesting history of Uruguay over the past fifty or so years, as seen through the lives of five queer women who form a commune of sorts in military dictatorship Uruguay. At times the need to address historical events of great significance in Uruguayan history as well as the panorama of things common to the lesbian experience could feel a bit shoehorned (the conversion therapy attempted by the Nazi doctor, the War of the Triple Alliance, marriage equality, etc.), but it was an interesting and engaging plot notwithstanding. Among other things, it made a powerful implicit case for the idea that monogamy is a convention upheld in no small part by procreative heterosexuality....more
Living in the heart of gay DC--where this book mostly takes place--I saw this book quite a lot. I was intrigued, even if horror isn't really my go-to Living in the heart of gay DC--where this book mostly takes place--I saw this book quite a lot. I was intrigued, even if horror isn't really my go-to genre. I guess it may be unfair to hold this against the book, but I found this alternatively stressful and boring. ...more
I'm a Lauren Groff apologist--I actually liked Fates and Furies, and thought Florida was great. But this was just OK. It started out exciting and witcI'm a Lauren Groff apologist--I actually liked Fates and Furies, and thought Florida was great. But this was just OK. It started out exciting and witchy, and while there were lots of great queer subplots, it kind of just plodded along without anything to exciting cropping up along the way....more
When I first heard the premise for this book my eyes about rolled out of my head: two trans women are dating, one of them decides to de-transition, anWhen I first heard the premise for this book my eyes about rolled out of my head: two trans women are dating, one of them decides to de-transition, and then the one who de-transitioned gets a cisgender woman pregnant, and the three of them all raise a child together. Only in Brooklyn, right?
If you can get over the implausibility of the premise, it's a really entertaining and thought-provoking book. The writing could have been a bit better, but the storytelling was on-point. I really enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would....more
My main takeaway is a bit of advice that I've been mulling over ever since reading it: we think far more This was pretty entertaining, if a bit long.
My main takeaway is a bit of advice that I've been mulling over ever since reading it: we think far more about what we do want than about what we don't want. This is kind of arbitrary if you think about it, and so many of us pitch headlong into situations that are somewhat miserable in order to achieve, possibly, ends we think we desire. But those who value freedom might have the better idea: understand yourself and know what you cannot abide and do everything in your power to avoid it....more
Loved this book--it was heartwarming and relatable and really funny and thoughtful. Funny enough, in November I went to a six-person dinner party and Loved this book--it was heartwarming and relatable and really funny and thoughtful. Funny enough, in November I went to a six-person dinner party and was introduced to a guy named "J.P." I thought he looked familiar, but couldn't quite place him. As soon as he started talking about his advice column I was like "Holy shit, this is J.P. Brammer!" Anyway, he was hilarious and smart in-person as well--we mused about Vatican III, mostly: NFTs of the Bible and the Shroud of Turin, etc. Not at all surprising. I look forward to his WaPo column and hopefully a future of long-form writing....more
The only other book I've read by Sarah Schulman was The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination, which is considerably shorter and mThe only other book I've read by Sarah Schulman was The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination, which is considerably shorter and more conceptual but focuses on the highly related subject matter of the New York City's loss in the wake of HIV/AIDS. That book is one I evangelize for, and I was excited to read a more granular, primary-source-anchored account of ACTUP, not only because of my interest in HIV/AIDS, queer history, etc., but because I've always been impressed by the creative and evocative ways that ACTUP made it impossible for an apathetic/hostile public to turn its attention from the scourge of HIV/AIDS.
Reading this during a pandemic was often poignant and felt very germane. Not only are some of the same names relevant--for example: Anthony Fauci is very prominent, and often demonized in this book for his perceived slow-rolling of AIDS treatments--but it's impossible not to draw parallels, or, more often: distinctions. Because HIV/AIDS is never and has never been a pandemic, even though those it affects are considerably less siloed than was and is still believed. If there is a thrust to this book, it's that HIV/AIDS was allowed to decimate certain populations because in the best of circumstances the straight/white world didn't care, and in the worst of cases saw HIV/AIDS as condign punishment for a life of vice, or an expedient end to lives better disposed of than preserved.
Vito Russo, an HIV/AIDS activist who died of the disease gave a speech titled "Why We Fight," and the speech in its entirety is included in this book. I have never been able to read through it without tearing up, and the few times I've tried to read it aloud to friends I have been unable to finish. But I think it's worth reading in full, because it speaks to the exigency of empathy.
A friend of mine in New York City has a half-fare transit card, which means that you get on buses and subways for half price. And the other day, when he showed his card to the token attendant, the attendant asked what his disability was and he said, I have AIDS. And the attendant said, no you don't, if you had AIDS, you'd be home dying. And so, I wanted to speak out today as a person with AIDS who is not dying.
You know, for the last three years, since I was diagnosed, my family thinks two things about my situation. One, they think I'm going to die, and two, they think that my government is doing absolutely everything in their power to stop that. And they're wrong, on both counts.
So, if I'm dying from anything, I'm dying from homophobia. If I'm dying from anything, I'm dying from racism. If I'm dying from anything, it's from indifference and red tape, because these are the things that are preventing an end to this crisis. If I'm dying from anything, I'm dying from Jesse Helms. If I'm dying from anything, I'm dying from the President of the United States. And, especially, if I'm dying from anything, I'm dying from the sensationalism of newspapers and magazines and television shows, which are interested in me, as a human interest story -- only as long as I'm willing to be a helpless victim, but not if I'm fighting for my life.
If I'm dying from anything -- I'm dying from the fact that not enough rich, white, heterosexual men have gotten AIDS for anybody to give a shit. You know, living with AIDS in this country is like living in the twilight zone. Living with AIDS is like living through a war which is happening only for those people who happen to be in the trenches. Every time a shell explodes, you look around and you discover that you've lost more of your friends, but nobody else notices. It isn't happening to them. They're walking the streets as though we weren't living through some sort of nightmare. And only you can hear the screams of the people who are dying and their cries for help. No one else seems to be noticing.
And it's worse than a war, because during a war people are united in a shared experience. This war has not united us, it's divided us. It's separated those of us with AIDS and those of us who fight for people with AIDS from the rest of the population.
Two and a half years ago, I picked up Life Magazine, and I read an editorial which said, "it's time to pay attention, because this disease is now beginning to strike the rest of us." It was as if I wasn't the one holding the magazine in my hand. And since then, nothing has changed to alter the perception that AIDS is not happening to the real people in this country.
It's not happening to us in the United States, it's happening to them -- to the disposable populations of fags and junkies who deserve what they get. The media tells them that they don't have to care, because the people who really matter are not in danger. Twice, three times, four times -- The New York Times has published editorials saying, don't panic yet, over AIDS -- it still hasn't entered the general population, and until it does, we don't have to give a shit.
And the days, and the months, and the years pass by, and they don't spend those days and nights and months and years trying to figure out how to get hold of the latest experimental drug, and which dose to take it at, and in what combination with other drugs, and from what source? And, how are you going to pay for it? And where are you going to get it? Because it isn't happening to them, so they don't give a shit.
And they don't sit in television studios, surrounded by technicians who are wearing rubber gloves, who won't put a microphone on you, because it isn't happening to them, so they don't give a shit. And they don't have their houses burned down by bigots and morons. They watch it on the news and they have dinner and they go to bed, because it isn't happening to them, and they don't give a shit.
And they don't spend their waking hours going from hospital room to hospital room, and watching the people that they love die slowly -- of neglect and bigotry, because it isn't happening to them and they don't have to give a shit. They haven't been to two funerals a week for the last three or four or five years -- so they don't give a shit, because it's not happening to them.
And we read on the front page of The New York Times last Saturday that Anthony Fauci now says that all sorts of promising drugs for treatment haven't even been tested in the last two years because he can't afford to hire the people to test them. We're supposed to be grateful that this story has appeared in the newspaper after two years. Nobody wonders why some reporter didn't dig up that story and print it 18 months ago, before Fauci got dragged before a Congressional hearing .
How many people are dead in the last two years, who might be alive today, if those drugs had been tested more quickly? Reporters all over the country are busy printing government press releases. They don't give a shit, it isn't happening to them -- meaning that it isn't happening to people like them -- the real people, the world-famous general public we all keep hearing about.
Legionnaire's Disease was happening to them because it hit people who looked like them, who sounded like them, who were the same color as them. And that fucking story about a couple of dozen people hit the front page of every newspaper and magazine in this country, and it stayed there until that mystery got solved.
All I read in the newspapers tells me that the mainstream, white heterosexual population is not at risk for this disease. All the newspapers I read tell me that IV drug users and homosexuals still account for the overwhelming majority of cases, and a majority of those people at risk.
And can somebody please tell me why every single penny allocated for education and prevention gets spent on ad campaigns that are directed almost exclusively to white, heterosexual teenagers -- who they keep telling us are not at risk!
Can somebody tell me why the only television movie ever produced by a major network in this country, about the impact of this disease, is not about the impact of this disease on the man who has AIDS, but of the impact of AIDS on his white, straight, nuclear family? Why, for eight years, every newspaper and magazine in this country has done cover stories on AIDS only when the threat of heterosexual transmission is raised?
Why, for eight years, every single educational film designed for use in high schools has eliminated any gay positive material, before being approved by the Board of Education? Why, for eight years, every single public information pamphlet and videotape distributed by establishment sources has ignored specific homosexual content?
Why is every bus and subway ad I read and every advertisement and every billboard I see in this country specifically not directed at gay men? Don't believe the lie that the gay community has done its job and done it well and educated its people. The gay community and IV drug users are not all politicized people living in New York and San Francisco. Members of minority populations, including so called sophisticated gay men are abysmally ignorant about AIDS.
If it is true that gay men and IV drug users are the populations at risk for this disease, then we have a right to demand that education and prevention be targeted specifically to these people. And it is not happening. We are being allowed to die, while low risk populations are being panicked -- not educated, panicked -- into believing that we deserve to die.
Why are we here together today? We're here because it is happening to us, and we do give a shit. And if there were more of us AIDS wouldn't be what it is at this moment in history. It's more than just a disease, which ignorant people have turned into an excuse to exercise the bigotry they have always felt.
It is more than a horror story, exploited by the tabloids. AIDS is really a test of us, as a people. When future generations ask what we did in this crisis, we're going to have to tell them that we were out here today. And we have to leave the legacy to those generations of people who will come after us.
Someday, the AIDS crisis will be over. Remember that. And when that day comes -- when that day has come and gone, there'll be people alive on this earth -- gay people and straight people, men and women, black and white, who will hear the story that once there was a terrible disease in this country and all over the world, and that a brave group of people stood up and fought and, in some cases, gave their lives, so that other people might live and be free.
So, I'm proud to be with my friends today and the people I love, because I think you're all heroes, and I'm glad to be part of this fight. But, to borrow a phrase from Michael Callen's song: all we have is love right now, what we don't have is time.
In a lot of ways, AIDS activists are like those doctors out there -- they're so busy putting out fires and taking care of people on respirators, that they don't have the time to take care of all the sick people. We're so busy putting out fires right now, that we don't have the time to talk to each other and strategize and plan for the next wave, and the next day, and next month and the next week and the next year.
And, we're going to have to find the time to do that in the next few months. And, we have to commit ourselves to doing that. And then, after we kick the shit out of this disease, we're all going to be alive to kick the shit out of this system, so that this never happens again.
COVID is undeniably a scourge, but the mortality rates are so much lower than HIV/AIDS that the two cannot be plausibly compared. In the United States, COVID mortality rates hover around 0.3%. At its peak in 1995 before the development of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART), HIV/AIDS mortality exceeded 16%, and was above 30% for self-identified gay men; what's more, it had been above 10% for the prior three years.
We moved heaven and earth in response to COVID, shut down our entire society, altered our way of life for years, took honest and cautious account of who might be harmed the most by its spread, and managed to create several astoundingly effective vaccines within a single year. For HIV/AIDS, developing HAART took well over a decade, and things like PrEP took more than three times as long.
The contrast is as repellent as it is revelatory. There is no world in which we would have tolerated HIV/AIDS if even 10% of straight, white, non-drug-using people in rich countries had been falling victim to it. Because that wasn't the case, as Vito Russo says: they didn't give a shit. Queer people mourned the families it's so hard for us to build as they died off in droves; gay men died horrifically undignified deaths, emaciated and covered in thrush and sores and excrement while straight people blamed these victims for their behavior and sinfulness. This, too, contrasts painfully with COVID, where doing things like living your life--including doing things like having a sex life and pursuing romance--are expected, and even the most reckless behaviors are largely free of moral condemnation less than two years in.
In 1985, Bob Hope told a joke about AIDS to an audience that included then-President Reagan and his wife, Nancy Reagan. "The Statue of Liberty has AIDS. They don't know if she got it from the mouth of the Hudson or the Staten Island 'ferry'." "Ferry" was a pun on "fairy" and "Hudson" was a double entendre referencing the Hudson River and also Rock Hudson, who was fairly well known to be a closeted gay man and the first high-profile celebrity to be acknowledged as having HIV/AIDS. President Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan purportedly laughed uproariously at the joke. Hudson, who was friendly with the Reagans from their time in Hollywood, begged the White House to intercede on his behalf to admit him to a hospital in France that he believed could provide the only treatment that might save his life, or at least mitigate the disease ravishing his body; Nancy demurred, and Hudson succumbed three months later. President Reagan didn't say the word "AIDS" until late in 1985, though his staff had been joking about it during pressers for years. Earlier this year, First Lady Jill Biden participated in a flashy ceremony honoring Nancy Reagan's depiction on a postage stamp.
I mention Nancy Reagan's rehabilitation because part of me thinks that the time has passed for white/heterosexual society to contend with and make amends for its passive toleration of HIV/AIDS. America is a supremely flawed country, and it's understandable that its people need to deploy a lot of cognitive dissonance just to get on. But as queer people our rage should be enduring and incandescent, and it's all the more incumbent that we work in solidarity with other groups facing less analogous forms of oppression and disregard to pull them from the teeth of a brutal and self-interested society....more
This was a splashy debut and everyone I knew was reading it at the time. It was pretty good--this is a 3.5 star review, rounded up to 4--and the topicThis was a splashy debut and everyone I knew was reading it at the time. It was pretty good--this is a 3.5 star review, rounded up to 4--and the topic was one that at once seems improbable (two gay enslaved youths semi-openly living as a couple on an antebellum plantation) and also one that must have happened countless times in various permutations. The writing seemed clearly influenced by the likes of James Baldwin and Toni Morrison, and that's never a bad thing. It just felt like the plot was a bit soapy at times. But overall a well executed and thought-provoking debut....more
This was an interesting enough book, though the premise--talking about gay men generally through the lens of individual patients the author had helpedThis was an interesting enough book, though the premise--talking about gay men generally through the lens of individual patients the author had helped over the years--got a bit old after a while. Probably the most interesting thing it did was divide gay men into camps based on their exposure to HIV/AIDS. In a time when HIV/AIDS is an afterthought for Americans with the privilege to afford PrEP, it is easy to forget that at one point gay men were taking their lives into their hands just by pursuing the normal human need for sex. The trauma that this inflicted upon that whole generation is inestimable, and the contrast in terms of mere decades could not be more stark....more
"Gay Bar: Why We Went Out" has a weird format: it's a bit of a memoir threaded through the author's monograph on gay bars through the ages. The author"Gay Bar: Why We Went Out" has a weird format: it's a bit of a memoir threaded through the author's monograph on gay bars through the ages. The author grew up in the Bay Area, went to college in LA, and seems to have spent the majority of his adulthood in London, three of the best known gay metropoles; New York makes a few cameos as well, but absent are other notable gay cities--Sydney, Tel Aviv, Berlin, dare I include DC? As others have noted, this is a limited sampling, but for many gay folks the only cities to live in are these, anyway.
Lin is a talented writer, as I think most of the reviews I've read and heard readily admit. He can turn a sentence, and drop esoteric quotes and references seemingly effortlessly. He also ably describes his own experiences at gay bars, sharing specific songs and feelings and moments in a way that the reader feels situated there with him.
With that all said, I didn't really feel like I took too much away from this book. It felt like it didn't commit enough to either an interesting personal narrative or a comprehensive history to leave me with any lasting impression. As to the first, the author probably cannot help this; it's probably a rare thing to have a personal history worth putting to paper for others to consume, but I think that's all the more reason one would want to stick to telling others' stories--I think of The Deviant's War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America by Eric Cervini and others that manage to convey important and underattended histories in engaging ways. This book had not enough of either to keep me very interested, and our book club managed about 10 minutes of discussion before moving on to other topics.
Last night my friend Patrick, who invited me to this book club, sent around this article, by Bryan Washington, which talks about his own experiences in gay bars, but in more of an episodic, anecdotal way. Obviously, such topics are more appropriate for an NYT article and might not be able to frame a whole book, but I still felt like I got more out of this one article than Lin's whole book. Not only because Washington describes the experience of building gay community in less metropolitan settings (Lin spends a bit of time talking about Blackpool in the United Kingdom, but the balance of the book deals with the gay meccas), but because he talks about gay community in a way that Lin either purposefully or accidentally glosses over. Lin's telling is about sexual encounters, shocking sights and smells, and dynamics; Washington talks about the miracle of queer spaces, the way that queer people together are greater than the sum of their parts, the way we find each other through sex or substance abuse or niche cultural interest and from these unlikely origins create family; for all of Lin's baleful warning about apps, there's no replacing this lifegiving aspect of being a queer person, or the gay bar's role in facilitating these queer communities....more
I really loved Lot: Stories, and the QTPOC Houstonians it portrayed. Washington is a great writer, and it was a smashing debut. Memorial, his second bI really loved Lot: Stories, and the QTPOC Houstonians it portrayed. Washington is a great writer, and it was a smashing debut. Memorial, his second book and first novel (as far as I know), deals with the relationship between "Ben" (Benson), a middle-class, HIV+ Black man, working at a daycare, and Mike, his overweight Japanese-American boyfriend, who works as a chef. They've been together for years, and things seem a bit lopsided, inspired by real affection but on borrowed time after a number of blowout fights, emotional distance, and entropy.
The novel starts with Mike picking up his acerbic Japanese mother at the airport, driving her to the Houston apartment he shares with Ben, and promptly leaving for Japan to spend time with his moribund father in Osaka. The characters grow apart in two senses--they both grow away from each other and grow as individuals in the absence of the other--as Mike reconnects with his brusque father and Ben his own family, and each of them find romantic partners they connect with better individually.
On many levels I related to the goings on in this book: as someone who has lost a parent, as someone who was in the process of wrapping up a relationship that was sustained by a lot of good but ultimately didn't have the legs to continue, as someone who feels alienated by the isolation of the pandemic (which the book does not cover). It felt accessible and true. But it also felt flat, like the characters lacked traceable arcs or achieved closure.
I won't make any categorical judgments just yet, but maybe Washington is just more suited to short stories?...more
"Shuggie Bain" was a difficult read for me. It's branded as a kind of poor, gay, Anglophone bildungsroman, but struck me much more as a tale of povert"Shuggie Bain" was a difficult read for me. It's branded as a kind of poor, gay, Anglophone bildungsroman, but struck me much more as a tale of poverty and alcoholism. At one point the titular character and one of his female confidants talk about their alcoholic mothers, saying that alcoholism is just a slow suicide for people who cannot face reality, and that sounded true enough. Even as Shuggie's mother's alcoholism abates at times, there is such a sense of foreboding and irretrievable doom that the few breaks of sunlight seem menacing rather than a reprieve. If you are close with anyone who struggles (or struggled) with alcoholism, I would imagine it could be difficult as well.
Told amidst the surprising squalor and dismalness of working class Thatcherite Scotland, Shuggie is the effeminate only child of Agnes, a fading beauty and unregenerate alcoholic, and Big Shug, a ladies-man cabbie. Poverty immiserates as a rule, and that's certainly the case here. Infidelity, lack of economic opportunity, alcoholism, and Catholic/Protestant antagonisms spoil the relationship, and the children bear the brunt of the fallout. Unlike other books in this genre I've catalogued before (The End of Eddy, etc.), this book is not about the main character's sexual awakening so much as it is a background leading into his adolescence and adulthood.
Shuggie Bain is well written and emotive, but an unrelenting and emotional slog. If you're up to it, I think it's worth the read. But the book is as dreary as a Glasgow winter, just be prepared....more
I don't think I had ever heard of Stephen McCauley before this book, but I put it on my list because some website or another that I trust listed it asI don't think I had ever heard of Stephen McCauley before this book, but I put it on my list because some website or another that I trust listed it as rave-worthy. Anyway, I was driving back from Thanksgiving and needed a new book, and I was lucky that this one popped up because it was great.
Immediately it brought to mind "Less," but while I didn't love Andrew Sean Greer's Pulitzer-winner, this one was much funnier and more relatable. Instead of (view spoiler)[an over-the-hill gay man swanning all over the globe, doubting his appeal only to reunite with his much younger lover, a story that I never found believable or very interesting (hide spoiler)], McCauley's David inhabits a much less glamorous station in life, having been dumped by his most recent lover (who is engaged to a rich surgeon), inhabiting a career he doesn't love, and not having much in terms of financial security to show for his travails. In desperate need of a change, he leaves San Francisco and goes to stay with his ex-wife in maritime Massachusetts, encountering a colorful cast of characters and forming meaningful if not predictable relationships throughout.
Heartwarming and funny, I have been browbeating everyone I can buttonhole who loved "Less" to read this and let me know their thoughts on how the two compare. All thoughts and reactions welcome!...more
This was really well written and intense, so much so that for the first time in memory, I found myself a bit exhausted and exasperated living in the aThis was really well written and intense, so much so that for the first time in memory, I found myself a bit exhausted and exasperated living in the author's head.
The premise is that a 30-something gay, having left NYC for LA and not in possession of wealth or the perfect body, seeks out an otherworldly solution for his brokenness. He is in recovery from addiction and coming off a few very painful breakups, so when he hears about a shaman who can cure everything, he leaps at the opportunity.
As I said, Lansky is such a skilled writer and an observant narrator, but sometimes--especially when cataloguing the materialistic things, e.g., the Creed cologne bottles or the fur trim of a designer coat--it felt hard to take seriously, especially when these details vied for space on the same page with (or stood in as metaphors for) breakthroughs and more transcendent realizations. There's a certain type of gay whose currency seems to consist entirely in being fluent in identifying, ranking, and hoarding such details, and while I get the impression that the author wanted us to associate those with his former self--the pre-enlightenment iteration--it didn't really come off that way in the end.
Regardless, I hope the author (presumably the narrator) is happy, and seems genuinely headed in that direction....more
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