The Mad Man - Softcover

Delany, Samuel R.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1563334089 ISBN 13: 9781563334085

Publisher: Masquerade Books, 1996

Synopsis

For his thesis, graduate student John Marr researches the life and work of the brilliant Timothy Hassler: philosopher whose career was cut tragically short over a decade earlier. Marr encounters numerous obstacles, as other researchers turn up evidence of Hassler's personal life that is deemed simply too unpleasant and disillusioning for the rarified air of academe. On another front, Marr finds himself increasingly drawn toward more shocking, depraved sexual entanglements with the homeless men of his neighborhood, until it begins to seem that Hassler's death might hold some key to his own life as a gay man in the age of AIDS. As John Marr learns more about the enigma that was Timothy Hassler, his own increasing sexual debasement leads him to a point where his and the philosopher's lives collide violently.…

Surely Samuel R. Delany's most graphic and unsettling novel, The Mad Man is a provocative look at contemporary social and sexual outsiders.

About this title

About the Author

Samuel R. Delany is a novelist and critic. His fiction includes Dhalgren (1975), the Return to Nevèrÿon series (1979-1987) and Atlantis: Three Tales (1995). His nonfiction writing includes The Motion of Light in Water (1987), Village Voice bestseller Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1999) and 1984: Selected Letters (2000).

Winner of the William Whitehead Memorial Award for a Life-time’s Contribution to Lesbian and Gay Literature, he currently teaches at Temple University in Philadelphia.

From Publishers Weekly

The latest novel from Hugo- and Nebula-winning science-fiction writer and critic Delany ( They Fly at Ciron ) reads like a pornographic reflection of Peter Ackroyd's Chatterton or A.S. Byatt's Possession. Precocious philosophy graduate student John Marr becomes increasingly interested in the short life and mysterious death of Timothy Hasler, a brilliant young philosopher murdered years before in New York. As Marr investigates Hasler through the 1980s and early '90s, the details of his life begin to parallel Hasler's, and as his sexual behavior grows more outlandish and extreme, it seems he's on a track that will inevitably follow the philosopher's descent into primal perversion and death. Marr muses on Hasler's life and thought, and on his own sexual habits and interests (including the lengthening shadow of AIDS), but the novel is dominated by graphic depictions of the graduate student's grungy sexual adventures (frequently involving excrement). The pornographic element, while overwhelming, becomes more than simple shock or titillation, though, as Delany develops an insightful dichotomy between Marr's two worlds: the one of cerebral philosophy and dry academia, the other of heedless, "impersonal" obsessive sexual extremism. When these worlds finally collide and Marr emerges more balanced and content, the novel achieves a surprisingly satisfying resolution--though the faint of heart or stomach will have fled long before.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Masquerade Books
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1563334089
• ISBN 13: 9781563334085
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 568