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kebbymoxie's review
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
fast-paced
5.0
A lovely series of short stories covering gay longing, masculinity, and the AIDs crisis. My favorite piece had to be Friends At Evening by Holleran.
zoes_human's review
This book is not horrible. I absolutely loved Richard Hall's "Backwards". It's an incredible enough short story that I'm keeping this book simply to have that story. I also thought that Andrew Holleran's "Friends at Evening", a story of three men on their way to the funeral of another, captures something crucial of 1980s AIDs crisis.
One problem with this collection is that five of the eighteen stories are excerpts from novels rather than actual pieces of short fiction. As far as I, a lover of short work, am concerned that means it only has thirteen stories. Thirteen stories is a perfectly acceptable number of pieces for an anthology, but it's a bit disappointing when one expects eighteen.
The second problem is that many of these stories feel incomplete. No sense of closure or completeness of arc exists in them. It is perhaps no small coincidence that an editor who feels that excerpts have a place in an anthology isn't troubled by shorts that fail to be a total story.
I suppose I could push through the final five stories in this book, but I'm too old to spend time with books or people who don't inspire my mind.
One problem with this collection is that five of the eighteen stories are excerpts from novels rather than actual pieces of short fiction. As far as I, a lover of short work, am concerned that means it only has thirteen stories. Thirteen stories is a perfectly acceptable number of pieces for an anthology, but it's a bit disappointing when one expects eighteen.
The second problem is that many of these stories feel incomplete. No sense of closure or completeness of arc exists in them. It is perhaps no small coincidence that an editor who feels that excerpts have a place in an anthology isn't troubled by shorts that fail to be a total story.
I suppose I could push through the final five stories in this book, but I'm too old to spend time with books or people who don't inspire my mind.
tropicalpanda's review
challenging
informative
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
this is hard to rate because of the fact that it’s an anthology, clearly written for a very specific gay male identity of a very specific time, and not meant for out-group consumption. It was an interesting read, and a lens into a world I’m not a part of, even as a person very very steeped in their own queer identity. It is very much a capsule of its specific time, and every story is so different since they’re all different authors processing and writing differently. There was more taboo topics than I had braced myself for, and I at times found it hard to stomach, but again, I am in no place to make a judgement call on gay culture of the mid 80’s. It’s interesting to read this collection, which clearly was meant just for the gay male contemporaries to read and is incredibly hard to find these days. It’s also devastating to read the “about the authors” section and read about what plans all the authors had for their future writings and to see how many didn’t survive long enough to complete those works.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Drug use, Addiction, Sexual content, Sexism, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Misogyny, Homophobia, Drug abuse, Sexual violence, Infidelity, Death, Grief, and Alcohol
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