Sweetheart - Softcover

McGehee, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312093993 ISBN 13: 9780312093990

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1993

Synopsis

In Boys Like Us, McGehee introduced a wonderfully zany cast of characters living in Toronto, all friends and ex-lovers of Zero McNoo, a gay man from Arkansas. Now one year later, Zero struggles with sex, love, family, politics, and friendship in the age of AIDS. "Full of tangy dialogue and wacky situations."--Booklist.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

Can life still be fun, even spontaneous, despite HIV and safe sex? Yes, indeed, according to Zero, whose adventures, sexual and political, now continue (after Boys Like Us). Zero, like most of his friends in this comic, gabby chronicle of these plague years, is HIV-positive. But he doesn't let a little detail like that slow him down. As the story begins, Zero, an American in Canada, is mourning his lover Randy, who got AIDS in book one. Zero and his fellow AIDS Action-Now activists have helped open a clinic that will administer pentamidine, which battles AIDS-related pneumonia. At the opening celebration, Zero is picked up by Jeff, which leads quickly to a graphic sex scene. As this relationship deepens into domesticity, a cutesy wrench is thrown into the works by the arrival of teenager Mary Bull--a would-be actress who was fathered by Zero's cousin and first lover, Trebeh, in a lesbian friend via turkey baster. But Mary Bull, like much else in this loosely linked string of episodes, many of them having to do with show biz, disappears and reappears without becoming fully engaged--or engaging. There is a visit home to the zany clan in Little Rock (repeat characters include gay Uncle Markus), where Zero's mom tells him she just wants him to get well. Back in Canada, when conflict arises over Randy's choice of an epitaph, which his parents call ``filth,'' Zero sums up, in a sense, the novel's raison d'ˆtre: ``He wanted something humorous and sexual to counter the usual impression people have of this disease. It's political, in a way.'' The challenge that McGehee poses, and admirably tries to meet, is how to treat the AIDS crisis with humor without registering as superficial and glib. At times, the flightiness of these blithe spirits seems forced--even grimly determined. But at least they're not wallowing in self-pity. And, finally, their courage, and commitment, impresses and moves. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

A novel that mentions, albeit fleetingly, a "wonderful new musical" entitled Gimme Back My Pork Chop can't be all bad; indeed, this witty sequel to Boys Like Us is just about all good. In three segments covering the period from November 1989 to May 1990, McGehee continues his exuberant chronicle of Zero McNoo, a shimmering beacon of Toronto's gay set. Zero meets Jeff at an AIDS-research benefit: it seems serious. We meet Zero's oddball family, assembled for an Arkansas wedding: it looks hilarious. (Readers overcome with laughter may wonder what Dear Abby counsels about shoot-'em-ups at nuptial receptions.) The book charms by not trying to; relying on keenly rendered dialogue, McGehee shunts his vivid characters effortlessly between high comedy and drama. (AIDS and "the camaraderie of the front lines" are never distant, and are handled with a sensitive, never melodramatic touch.) Though not quite as loopy as it apparently intends to be, the book's almost palpable sweetness creates a winning pastiche. The author's obvious affection for and thorough understanding of his eccentric cast infuses the tale with a cuddly, comic romanticism. Sadly, readers will be deprived of this lovable hero's further adventures: McGehee died of AIDS last September.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0312093993
• ISBN 13: 9780312093990
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 207