A noted author and novelist presents a selection of essays and journals that explore his sexuality, relationships, and the advance and effect of the AIDS virus within him from which he eventually died. 50,000 first printing.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
It is possible not to care for Harold Brodkey's obsessive, digressive, almost plotless fiction and still be moved by this memoir of his last sufferings until his death, in mid-1996, of AIDS. Brodkey was a writer for whom style was everything, but in his own implacable and untimely mortality he found a subject before which style was nothing. In this assemblage of essays, journal entries, and brief notes, he confronts his illness from a clinical perspective without losing his ironic tone or his genius for minutiae. In a sense, Brodkey wrote nothing but autobiography throughout his career; this, then, is a fitting final chapter.
With remarkable grace and stunning bravery, Brodkey (The Runaway Soul, 1991, etc.) chronicles his own harrowing slide into illness and death. At first glance it seems an obvious--and cruel--irony that recording the ``passage into nonexistence'' should fall to a writer whose lifework was so vibrantly obsessed with chronicling the self. Yet it's difficult to imagine a writer better equipped to accomplish that grim task than Brodkey, whose restless intellect and elegant, precise language bestowed an almost physical beauty on the abstraction of human consciousness. From the time he was diagnosed with AIDS, while editing his novel Profane Friendship in the spring of 1993, until his death earlier this year, continuing to write--to convey order on formlessness--seems to have been not only an anodyne but a constant, sustaining desire for Brodkey. This book, portions of which appeared in the New Yorker, is many things: a journal that catalogs the daily indignities (the countless pills, the loss of strength and independence, the vagaries of public perception) attendant on AIDS; a memoir poignant with self-doubt and regret; a calm meditation on (and preparation for) death. For all his prickly combativeness and wounded vanity, Brodkey doesn't rage at the dying of the light. He saves his greatest bitterness and vituperation not for death, but for certain elements of New York life, especially for the city's ``literary empire-builders and . . . masters of fakery.'' Yet throughout his illness he remains devoted to the city, to his wife, Ellen Schwamm, whose ministrations and love are of immense importance and comfort to him, and ultimately to himself and his work. ``If I had to give up what I've written in order to be clear of this disease,'' he declares near the end, ``I wouldn't do it.'' Deeply affecting--a haunted, haunting work that penetrates with starling directness to the very core of the human mysteries: how to live, how to die. (First printing of 50,000) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
FREE
Within U.S.A.
Shipping:
FREE
Within U.S.A.
Seller: SecondSale, Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. Item in good condition. Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc. Seller Inventory # 00066951207
Quantity: 3 available
Seller: SecondSale, Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Condition: Very Good. Item in very good condition! Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc. Seller Inventory # 00073725758
Quantity: 2 available
Seller: BooksRun, Philadelphia, PA, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: Good. First Edition. Ship within 24hrs. Satisfaction 100% guaranteed. APO/FPO addresses supported. Seller Inventory # 0805048316-11-1
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: New Legacy Books, Annandale, NJ, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. Fast shipping and order satisfaction guaranteed. A portion of your purchase benefits Non-Profit Organizations, First Aid and Fire Stations!. Seller Inventory # 0WOPD4005IBV
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Better World Books, Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. 1st. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages. Seller Inventory # GRP47750107
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Better World Books, Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.
Condition: Very Good. 1st. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in excellent condition. May show signs of wear or have minor defects. Seller Inventory # GRP89314141
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Better World Books, Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. 1st. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages. Seller Inventory # GRP102078892
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Wonder Book, Frederick, MD, U.S.A.
Condition: Very Good. Very Good condition. Good dust jacket. A copy that may have a few cosmetic defects. May also contain light spine creasing or a few markings such as an owner's name, short gifter's inscription or light stamp. Seller Inventory # I10B-01378
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: ThriftBooks-Dallas, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: As New. No Jacket. Pages are clean and are not marred by notes or folds of any kind. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.7. Seller Inventory # G0805048316I2N00
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: ThriftBooks-Reno, Reno, NV, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Former library book; Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.7. Seller Inventory # G0805048316I3N10
Quantity: 1 available