Spontaneous Combustion - Hardcover

Feinberg, David B.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670838136 ISBN 13: 9780670838134

Publisher: Viking Adult, 1991

Synopsis

After testing positive for HIV, B.J. Rosenthal explores his options--from AZT to ACT UP--dealing with his condition with humor and courage, even as friends and former lovers are dying

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

A disjointed and derivative novel about gay life in Manhattan- -a second attempt by Feinberg (Eighty-Sixed, 1989) to strike sparks from the contemporary tragedy of AIDS. B.J. is already a self-described ``emotional black hole'' when he tests positive for the HIV virus. A bundle of neuroses whose narrative voice is a jittery rehash of every late-night talk-show quip, B.J. is perpetually on the make and is surrounded with others similarly obsessed. The irony of AIDS, of course, makes this a fairly frustrating lifestyle--everyone is talking about sex, but ever fewer are doing it. And so what we get, as the novel lurches from episode to episode, is chapter after chapter of missed connections: Cameron, Richard, Allan, Wendall, Roger. Counterpointing these chatty, time-killing nonhappenings--in which Feinberg recycles waiter jokes and celebrity scandals --are two grim interludes with dying friends Gordon and Seymour. Seymour's death throes are quite affecting, but since we don't meet him until page 112, when he's literally dying, his character is largely irrelevant to B.J.'s story. (In fact, the suspicion arises that until Seymour tested positive, B.J. didn't much think about him or his health.) That's the way it goes for much of the book--potential undermined by slapdash plotting and a near-total inattention to character development. There could have been a novel in this material, but as B.J. puts it: ``In the approaching-the-fin-de- siŠcle manner, one uses a less exacting set of criteria in selecting possible dates. In other words, we've lowered our standards.'' This may be true for dating, but not for writing. Not for the mainstream, but not, either, destined to break any ground in the gay fiction market, although it may help pass the time on the airplane or the train. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

In content and in style, this tres gay sequel to Eighty-Sixed is a mixed bag--a smart drawstring purse, as man-hungry protagonist B.J. Rosenthal might say. Spanning the period from January 1985 to June 1990 (with a coyly prophetic appendix, "After the Cure"), the novel chronicles amatory capers overshadowed by the specter of AIDS. "I might as well buy condolence cards wholesale," laments B.J., who himself tests positive for the virus. Morbidity, however, is intermittently kept at bay by a dizzying parade of B.J.'s friends and paramours, whose dishy dialogue frequently makes them indistinguishable from one another. Confusing, too, are some of the time sequences: Feinberg's tangents have tangents, and he often seems to be writing in never-ending parenthetical asides. The tone is giddily and unremittingly New York, and the parade of retro repartee ("pure as the driven slush") wears thin. Feinberg reins in the one-liners as the tone grows less determinedly fey, and there is real poignancy in one character's final days. While B.J.'s droll tone is ingratiating, readers may wish his voice were more consistent and less capricious.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0670838136
• ISBN 13: 9780670838134
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240