A review by moonyreadsbystarlight
The Man With Night Sweats by Thom Gunn

emotional reflective medium-paced

5.0

The Man With The Night Sweats paints a vivid picture of community and isolation in 1980s San Fransisco. Overwhelming melancholy may brush against hope at times, but you can feel the shadow over everything. Most of the poems overtly about AIDS are in the last chapter, but the specter is present in each chapter. There were individual poems that were good, some that I felt less strongly about - but more than that, the collection as a whole is so intentionally curated. That flow and structure, the build up to that last chapter, makes this collection that much more powerful. 

I have more thought and feelings about it, but over all, this was an incredible book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Violence and Medical content