Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'

People in Trouble by Sarah Schulman

1 review

james1star's review

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challenging emotional informative inspiring sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

TW: mentions of HIV/AIDS, death, grief, anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and discriminatory language 

This book is was rather mixed I’d say. I did overall enjoy it but there were some major things that I didn’t like. I’ll discuss them first. Of the three perspectives (molly - a lesbian, Kate - Molly’s lover, and Peter - Kate’s husband) I for the most part liked reading the former two’s but not much of Peter’s. He is just a very unlovable character but I can somewhat sympathasise with some of what he’s going through. However, overall he holds rather descriminatory and uncaring throughts and acts in a selfish manner but then again is in response to himself being unfairly treated by Kate. The other perspectives (which are in 3rd person and I think this narration is a better implementation as the characters are mixed and I don’t think I’d of liked it as much being 1st person) are better but do have their own problems. I also don’t like the inclusion of homophobic and lesbophobic ideas, language and actions specifically when they are being said by an inappropriate character e.g. a ‘bisexual’ women using the f*g word and vice a versa men using dy*e for example. This made me feel rather uncomfortable but in some ways the opneess that Schulman’s language and discussions in the book are good in their own ways. 

Following on from this I did feel a lot of the book’s content was ‘wasted’ in a sense where the author includes many discussions about the relationship and other benign things where I personally wanted to know more about ‘justice’ the aids awareness group (I think based on the ‘act up’ organisation) and their actions which were by far much more interesting to read. I also wanted more focus on the queer characters which were comfortable being queer, their stories and actions. However, the book does tackle many issues specifically: the aids epidemic, homelessness, drug/alcohol abuse, classism, being queer in that period (1980s) and how oneself and others views queerness, relationships, infidelity, death and grief among others. These are all addressed rather well specifically with Kate coming to terms (or not) with her bisexuality but she holds a constant ‘other’ approach to being called a lesbian and it’s not that she fully understand’s she is bi but more that she doesn’t want to be labelled as lesbian so her journey is quite interesting but sad to read. Despite not liking all the discussions about relationships and the conversions/actions between the ‘couples’ it does give me Sally Rooney vibes in ‘Conversations With Friends’ due in part to the topic but also Shulman’s ‘open’ writing style where she writes in a matter of fact way that is very real and raw. 

Overall, I did enjoy reading this but personally had some reservations so would give it a 3.75. It was quite easy to get through as the chapters are very short and you do want to read on about following the plot, this is more apparent in the latter 2/3rds of the book I’d say where more queer characters and the actions of ‘justice’ are focussed on. I can’t give it any higher as the use of certain language (yes I do have to view in it the time it was written (1990) but still made me uncomfortable) and the focus on some relationships/characters I wasn’t that invested in. Also there is a quite a lot of repetitive scenarios but the ones about the raw descriptions of homelessness and the aids epidemic in NYC are rather hard hitting. Also the ending wasn’t that much to my taste and I did feel it was rather rusher but then again I don’t know how I would have liked it to have ended myself but Yhh. 

P.S. but the horrible billionaire property developer Robert Horne (I think that was his name) really gives my Donald Trump vibes and I just couldn’t stop making the connections. 
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