The Medicine Burns: And Other Stories (High Risk Books) - Softcover

Klein, Adam

3.79

38 ratings by Goodreads

9781852424039: The Medicine Burns: And Other Stories (High Risk Books)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1852424036 ISBN 13: 9781852424039

Publisher: Serpent's Tail, 2000

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Klein's debut fiction collection brims with images of boys and men who just don't fit in. They have acne; they are drag queens; they have club feet; they are social misfits; some even have AIDS. His variety of protagonists sheds new light on the role of the outsider in a society obssessed with beauty and sex.

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About the Author:

Adam Klein studied creative writing at the University of Iowa and San Francisco State University. His work has appeared in Men on Men 5 and BOMB magazine. He is also a musician, recording and performing with his band, Roman Evening. He lives in San Francisco.

From Publishers Weekly:

Taken separately, the short stories in this debut collection are brief slices of bitterness. Taken together, they describe a gay coming of age and a coming to grips with human frailty. In the first story, the physical manifestation is genetic: the club foot the narrator inherited from his mother. After a party at which his guests dress up in his mother's clothing and makeup, his parents discover his sexual preference. "All I wanted was for you to have a chance at a normal life," his mother says. "It's like you've chosen to be deformed." In the title story, the narrator recounts the parallel tales of his painful acne treatment and the doomed affair between a friend (a member of "the secret club of beautiful men") and a married man. By "Dr. K.," though, the body's betrayal is fatal: with the narrator's lover dying, he begins an affair with a man whose lover has killed himself. After inquiring about the lover, he adds apologetically that "Storytelling... is what people do during the plague-they hole up somewhere and have a round table." Klein's evocation of both an individual and a culture maturing and entering a funereal phase is strong, and although there are weak patches here and there when imagery gets in the way of meaning-especially in "India," which stumbles pointlessly about-his direct, economical language hammers these stories home with a single stroke.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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