The Waterfront Journals - Softcover

Wojnarowicz, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802135048 ISBN 13: 9780802135049

Publisher: Grove Press, 1997

Synopsis

Before his death from AIDS in 1992, David Wojnarowicz became known in the 1980s as an outspoken AIDS activist, anticensorship advocate, artist, and writer. Written as short monologues, each of these powerful, early works of autobiographical fiction is spoken in the voice of a character he stumbles upon during travels throughout America.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

'The Waterfront Journals' is a collection of the author's early works of autobiographical fiction. Written as short monologues, each is in the voice of one of the many people he encountered in his travels throughout America in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when he was living on the street.

From Kirkus Reviews:

The late performance artist (Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration, not reviewed), made famous by Jesse Helms, left these 40-plus short monologues--all of them written before his work became focused on his struggle with AIDS. Despite the argument advanced by Tony Kushner's politically hysterical introduction, these voices from the dark side needn't be ``authentic'' to have value as literature. Their similarity in syntax and design in fact suggest the controlling medium of Wojnarowicz, who romanticizes the down and out: the boy hustlers, junkies, alcoholics, crazies, whores, truckers, and hobos who relate their anecdotes of infamy in these relentlessly seedy narratives. The sex is mostly gay and anonymous. One man finds purity in such encounters by the Hudson River; another describes sex with a legless Vietnam vet; yet another takes advantage of a sick teenager who had previously resisted anal sex; a runner meets two drug-taking priests who talk about the size of various men they've had; a boy fades in and out of consciousness as he's being brutally raped by a sadist; another boy entertains a masochist; and a fellow describes the joys of naked boxing. The boys ``hustlin the Square'' describe the changes in Times Square johns; the whores tell of violent customers and corrupt cops. Winos and junkies, meanwhile, babble about all sorts of things, and a night watchman records his sad marital history. Truckers remember the golden age of hoboes, and a hobo talks of using trickery to commit his wife to an insane asylum. Many of these figures spin swift tales of deceit and deception, such as the boy who discovers that his movie-balcony pick-up is really a pre-op transsexual. Little attention is paid to place in these quick takes, and the speakers don't have much time to develop individuality, creating a certain flattening effect overall. If Studs Terkel covered the Jean Genet beat, the result might be something like these oral snippets, more sad than shocking. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Grove Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0802135048
• ISBN 13: 9780802135049
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 127