- Paperback: 252 pages
- Publisher: Serpent's Tail (Mar 1 1994)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1852423366
- ISBN-13: 978-1852423360
- Product Dimensions: 20.2 x 12.6 x 1.9 cm
- Shipping Weight: 240 g
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
New York, Munich and Cartagena, Colombia are the scenes of reckless decadence and excess in the early dawn of the AIDS epidemic, as recounted in this ambitious, uneven chronicle of a charismatic gay filmmaker's final years. Two friends of the late Paul Grosvener meet in New York in 1991 and discuss, over cocktails and joints, circumstances that led to his somewhat mysterious death. The narrative flashes back seven years to Cartagena, where Paul is directing a movie. Surrounded by corruption and poverty, stultified by excessive heat, drugs, liquor and sex, a motley crew of ex-Nazis, native Colombians, cosmopolitan actors and "cinema types"--narcissists and grotesques--butt heads as they struggle to bring Paul's obscure vision to the screen. The second part of the novel recounts Paul's lover's horrible death from AIDS, Paul's own contraction of the virus, and the intrigue of his suicide. Indiana ( Horse Crazy ) frustrates the reader with his inconsistent first-person narrative. Contemplating life in the face of death he presents keen insights both through symbolism and through overt discussion; but at times his prose becomes overburdened with ostentatious mixed metaphors and almost Chandleresque similes that create an incongruous, mocking tone. Reminding us that he is not omniscient, Indiana's narrator disrupts his own story with frequent asides. Still, this is an intelligent, evocative treatment of an all too timely and difficult subject.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Library Journal
The first half of Indiana's new book, told in flashback, relates the pre-AIDS drug- and sex-drenched 1984 location shoot, in a vividly detailed Colombia, of a movie being made by a bunch of self-indulgent Euro-trash filmmakers. As told by one of its actors, the book details, years later, the very messy death from AIDS of director Paul's lover and finally Paul's self-willed demise. If nothing else, Indiana is daring, both in the oddly forceful convention-breaking structure of the narrative and in the horrific excesses of his mostly unlikable characters. (The mostly homosexual sex, including a coupling in front of a crematory at present-day Dachau, is easily X-rated.) However, Indiana ( Horse Crazy , LJ 5/15/89) skillfully if brutally uses this deliberate tendency to pornography as an often-moving statement about the debased quality of our brain-dead culture and the raging nihilism of AIDS. This is not a pretty picture, but it's brave and it works, often powerfully.
- David Bartholomew,
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
- David Bartholomew,
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
I once had cancer on my face and when it was excised a fine web of scars embedded itself in my right cheek like the soft crust of a souffle. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
I once had cancer on my face and when it was excised a fine web of scars embedded itself in my right cheek like the soft crust of a souffle. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dark, Disturbing, yeah....It's about AIDS, you a**holes, Sep 6 2007
By Brian C. Bauman "brian bauman" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Gone Tomorrow (Paperback)
This book, like all of Indiana's writing, is difficult, but that doesn't mean it's unfulfilling. The prose is vivid, the atmosphere is fully-rendered, and the characters are fascinating. I finished the book and immediately started it over again. A lost classic.
2 of 9 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Disgusting, cruel, unfunny book, Jan 26 2000
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Gone Tomorrow (Paperback)
I guess the author thought his subjects were funny--disabled people, sick people, people dying. If so, he's the only one. I finished the book only to see if it could get even worse, the writing so sloppy, the characters tinny, and the situations entirely cruel in their exaggeration. I couldn't find one single insight into gay life (or any life) that makes this book worth keeping, and I didn't.
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