|
Chronicle of a Plague, Revisited: AIDS and Its Aftermath | 
| Author: Andrew Holleran
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
Buy New: $6.65
You Save: $9.35 (58%)
New (36) Used (20) from $3.18
Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 145337
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st Da Capo Press Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.5 x 0.6
ISBN: 0786720395
Dewey Decimal Number: 614.5993920097471
EAN: 9780786720392
ASIN: 0786720395
Publication Date: May 12, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK BOOK IN EXCELLENT CONDITION, PROMPT NEXT DAY SHIPPING IN PADDED ENVELOPES
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Andrew Holleran’s Ground Zero, first published in 1988 and consisting of 23 Christopher Street essays from the earliest years of the AIDS crisis, was hailed by the Washington Post as “one of the best dispatches from the epidemic’s height.” Twenty years later, with HIV/AIDS long recognized as a global health challenge, Holleran both reiterates and freshly illuminates the devastation wreaked by AIDS, which has claimed the lives of 450,000 gay men as well as 22 million others. Chronicle of a Plague, Revisited features ten pieces never previously republished outside Christopher Street, as well as a new introduction keenly describing and evaluating a historical moment that still informs and defines today’s world-particularly its community of homosexuals, which, arguably, is still recovering from the devastation of AIDS.
|
| Customer Reviews:
Andrew Holleran At His Best July 11, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
When Andrew Holleran burst on the gay literary scene with DANCER FROM THE DANCE we knew we had never read anything quite this wonderful before that was about us. He has consistently written fine novels since that time and continues to fill a needed niche in gay literature, whatever that term means. I have read and own every book he has written, and always looked forward to reading his columns in the gay literary magazine "Christopher Street." Now twenty years after the collection of essays dealing with AIDS was published as GROUND ZERO, he has revisited that volume, make some deletions, some additions and has written a thoughtful new introduction. These essays are still painful to reread, calling to mind things I had forgotten: the four hour buzzer to remind patients to take AZT, the friends who would not drink from the same glass as another, the treatment that Rock Hudson went to France for, the euphemistic use of the word "exposure" rather than saying someone had been exposed to AIDS, Patient Zero. The list goes on and on.
In his introduction Mr. Holleran says that he wrote these essays out of a great feeling of fear and impotence-- when writing fiction seemed useless-- something he captures with awful eloquence in what perhaps is his very best writing. Although he lived in the center of the storm in New York, his experiences were mirrored, sad to say, in every major city in this country during the awful 1980's. His Emmanuels, Eddies and Cosmos et al were my Pierces and Ralphs and Kens and Judds. AIDS in large cities with ACT-UP and support groups and creative funerals was very different than what people experienced in small towns, a dilemma that Abraham Verghesse, a brilliant and most humane physician, captures so poignantly in MY OWN COUNTRY, an account of his experience in caring for people with AIDS in Johnson City, Tennessee in the 1980's. Holleran reminds us that some of us acted badly-- he tells of the man who infected someone he knew but denied that he had AIDS-- but that many of us rose to the occasion and took care of the dying when our government for the most part in those awful Reagan years looked the other way.
By far the best essay in this collection is "Bobby's Grave" which is not about AIDS in New York but about the death, funeral and burial of a friend of Holleran's from Florida, so beautifully written but so sadly familiar.
I am not sure who will read these essays. Many of those who lived through this dreadful time and are still standing probably will not want to revisit the 1980's. Our address books with names crossed out or every time we pass the apartment building that housed people with AIDS where a friend lived and died are sober reminders that our friends are forever gone. On the other hand, nothing captures better than these essays the utter horror of that time. We can only hope that a day will come when the events of CHRONICLE OF A PLAGUE REVISITED will be just a part of ancient history.
Remembering May 20, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Holleran, Andrew. "Chronicle of a Plague, Revisited", De Capo Press, 2008.
Remembering
Amos Lassen
It is always an important day for me when a new Andrew Holleran book comes out. Holleran was the author who introduced me to the world of gay literature and last year I finally had the chance to meet him when my reading group invited him to participate in the Arkansas Literary Festival. He is a wonderful writer and a prince of a man.
"Chronicle of a Plague, Revisited" is a look back at the AIDS epidemic and what it has done and still is doing to our community. It is a collection of twenty-four essays that appeared in "Christopher Street" magazine during the epidemic. Holleran assesses what we lost and looks at the era and the literature it produced. In "Ground Zero" published in 1988, Holleran published twenty-three essays which he wrote during the early years of the AIDS crisis and had been published in "Christopher Street". When he found out the book was out of print, he decided that we could not, as a community, forget what had been our holocaust. Holleran took the essays and reframed them with a new introduction and issued "Chronicles of a Plague, Revisited". When "Ground Zero" was published it was hailed by many as a review in "The Washington Post" stated, "one of the best dispatches from the epidemic's height". Looking backwards, we
learn that AIDS took the lives of almost half a million gay men and twenty-two million others. Can we allow ourselves to forget? Dare we do so?
AIDS seems to have become a historical moment in time, an epidemic that defines an age. Many today do know what is was like back then; when we were afraid to read the obituaries in the morning paper because we did not want to see the name of someone we knew. My generation is almost gone and those that are no longer here left this world with lives half finished. They will never be replaced and although we have made great strides of late, they could have been so much greater. We lost so many of our heroes and our leaders, so many beautiful men in the prime of life. We still live in the shadow of the disease that tried to erase us from the world.
Andrew Holleran tells us about it and he does not mince his words. I lived through the period and I know he says the truth--eloquently and intellectually and with a gift for using the right words. Many of you did not experience AIDS and some of you have forgotten that it ever was around. The AIDS of today is very different from what was and in a way it is still the same. It decimated us and it brought us together.
Holleran says we mist refocus in it. He has chosen to delete the stories from "Ground Zero" that were about sexual freedom and instead we get a more personal look at the effects of the disease and the way it still affects us today. We know that AIDS has changed our lives, our culture, our America. Let Holleran tell you how.
Personally, I have a hard time reading about AIDS. I was living in Israel when the epidemic hit and during the peak of it. Whenever I came back to visit America, I would learn that more and more of my friends were either ill or gone. For me, it is too real and when I do read, I cry. I cried through "Ground Zero" and I cried through "Chronicle" and I will probably cry again and again. But crying is a release and it is necessary for me to do in order to get on with my life.
Holleran writes in a lyrical and melodic style which is methodic and captivating, He has always been a hero to me and meeting him right after having survived Katrina and relocating to Little Rock will always be one of the highlights of my life. I will never forget how pleased he was when we talked about how I dealt with change and I know he saw the glow on my face as he autographed his books for me. "Ground Zero" was lost to Katrina but "Chronicle" is now here to replace it.
If you read no other non-fiction book of gay literature, make sure this is the one you choose. And let Holleran know how much we appreciate all that he has done for us.
Holleran's words are still a vivid truth now 20 years later... May 8, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Andrew Holleran's book, Dancer From the Dance, was the first piece of gay fiction I ever read back in college. After reading it twice, I immediately sought out his other books. He still remains my all time favorite writer to this day.
I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a used copy of Ground Zero here on Amazon many years ago. In the introduction of his new book, Chronicle of a Plague, Holleran mentions that he had to find a copy of the out of print book at the library. Over the course of 20 years, it had only been checked out about 12 times, a strange metaphor for how society sometimes views AIDS. It's a subject which comes and goes from our attention sporadically, but is still there and still is a harsh truth we have to face.
When I found out about this new book being an updated version of Ground Zero with new stories, a refocus on the "plague," I decided to go back and reread the original. Holleran's bath house conversations and tales of the "ole days" on Fire Island were like reading history for me, a history I didn't experience because I was too young then or not even born. The AIDS I know is very different from the one Holleran writes about. And yet, it is still the same. Some of us have just forgotten about it, or have chosen to forget.
And so, Holleran demands that we refocus on it here in this revamped collection. He has removed some of the stories which were more about the sexual freedom that quickly became a thing of the past, and turned our eyes more toward the personal effects the disease had, and still has, on his friends and acquaintances. How has it changed us in twenty years, how has it changed gay culture, and how has it changed America?
Whether this is your first time reading these stories, or if you had the pleasure of reading the original from 1988, those who know Holleran's writing will be pleased. His dreamy methodic style of writing is captivating and definitely holds your attention. It's something you can relate to and will want to question and ponder. The new additions to the book are a fresh look at how things have changed in twenty years for the writer, for all of us.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
