Life Sentences: Writers, Artists, and AIDS - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 156279051X ISBN 13: 9781562790516

Publisher: Mercury House, 1994

Synopsis

Writers and artists discuss AIDs and the effects of the disease on their creative work and emotional wellbeing

About this title

From Library Journal

These poems, stories, and interviews address the effects of AIDS on creative people and their products, but they are united by subject matter only. If the test of a topical anthology is its ability to elucidate interrelationships among the individual pieces, this ambitious collection fails. The individual pieces are potent: Adam Klein candidly portrays an HIV+ painter making art with the ashes of his former associate; a disconcertingly detatched Bo Huston describes visits to a homeopathic doctor in Zurich; composer/singer Diamanda Galas engages the reader as both the subject of an interview and the object of a critical analysis. But despite this admirable diversity, the work as a whole is ultimately unable to create the requisite thematic evolution. While the pieces make use of intriguing motifs (such as characters named only by an initial or the concept of the physical body as unreliable partner to the real person), the lack of development reduces these motifs to mere repetition. Libraries will be better served with an array of more complete and coherent works: David Wojnarowicz's Memories That Smell Like Gasoline ( LJ 8/92), High Risk (Dutton, 1991), and Essex Hemphill's Ceremonies ( LJ 10/1/92) would be a good start. --Eric Bryant, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

Avena, the founder and editor of the Bastard Review , has compiled a stunning collection of poetry and prose by 14 artists and writers who (with the exception of one) have AIDS or are HIV-positive. Among the gifted and controversial contributors are Severo Sarduy, who, like Avena, draws parallels between AIDS and the Holocaust; William Dickey and Edmund White, who compare AIDS with aging; Marlon Riggs, who says of the simultaneity of living and dying, "we are simultaneously diminished by what enlarges us in life--a seeming contradiction that defines the fundamental meaning of existence"; and David Wojnarowicz, who describes his growing despair: "I am all emptiness and futility . . . a dark smudge in the air that dissipates without notice." Other contributors include Tory Dent, Thom Gunn, Essex Hemphill, Bo Huston and Tony Kushner, who express rage against those who see the disease as retribution, anguish as their bodies seem to turn against them and freedom once they accept AIDS as an integral part of their lives. Much of the book's language, like the experiences portrayed, is brutal and graphic; yet many pieces sear with elegance in the face of death. Huston, Sarduy and Wojnarowicz have since died from complications of AIDS. Illustrated.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Mercury House
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 156279051X
• ISBN 13: 9781562790516
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 304
• Editor: Avena Thomas