Visions and revisions : coming of age in the age of AIDS / Dale Peck.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Peck, Dale, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Peck, Dale.

Authors, American--20th century--Biography.

Authors, American.

Gays--Crimes against.

Gay people.

AIDS (Disease)--Treatment.

AIDS (Disease).

AIDS (Disease)--Patients--Medical care.

AIDS (Disease)--Patients.

AIDS activists.

Gay authors.

United States.

Gay authors--United States--Biography.

AIDS activists--United States--Biography.

AIDS (Disease)--Patients--Medical care--United States.

AIDS (Disease)--Treatment--United States.

Gay people--Crimes against--United States.

AIDS (Disease) in literature.

Gay people in literature.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

212 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

New York, N Y : Soho Press, 2015.

Summary:

"Novelist and critic Dale Peck's latest work--part memoir, part extended essay--is a foray into what the author calls "the second half of the first half of the AIDS epidemic," i.e., the period between 1987, when the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) was founded, and 1996, when the advent of combination therapy transformed AIDS from a virtual death sentence into a chronic manageable illness. Reminiscent of Joan Didion's The White Album and Kurt Vonnegut's Palm Sunday, Visions and Revisions has been assembled from over a dozen essays and articles that have been extensively rewritten and recombined to form a sweeping, collage-style portrait of a tumultuous era. Moving seamlessly from the lyrical to the analytical to the reportorial, Peck's story takes readers from the serial killings of gay men in New York, London, and Milwaukee, through Peck's first loves upon coming out of the closet, to the transformation of LGBT people from marginal, idealistic fighters to their present place in a world of widespread, if fraught, mainstream acceptance. The narrative pays particular attention the words and deeds of AIDS activists, offering a street-level portrait of ACT UP with considerations of AIDS-centered fiction and criticism of the era, as well as intimate, sometimes elegiac portraits of artists, activists, and HIV-positive people Peck knew. Peck's fiery rhetoric against a government that sat on its hands for the first several years of the epidemic is tinged with the idealism of a young gay man discovering his political, artistic, and sexual identity. The result is a visionary and indispensable work from one of America's most brilliant and controversial authors. "-- Provided by publisher.

"Novelist and critic Dale Peck's latest work--part memoir, part extended essay--is a foray into what the author calls "the second half of the first half AIDS epidemic," i.e., the period between 1987, when the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) was founded, and 1996, when the advent of combination therapy transformed AIDS from a virtual death sentence into a chronic manageable illness. Visions and Revisions has been assembled from more than a dozen essays and articles that have been extensively rewritten and recombined to form a sweeping, collage-style portrait of a tumultuous era. Moving seamlessly from the lyrical to the analytical to the reportorial, Peck's story takes readers from the serial killings of gay men in New York, London and Milwaukee, through Peck's first loves upon coming out of the closet, to the transformation of LGBT people from marginal, idealistic fighters to their present place in a world of widespread, if fraught, mainstream acceptance. The narrative pays particular attention the words and deeds of AIDS activists, offering up a street-level portrait of ACT UP together with considerations of AIDS-centered fiction and criticism of the era, as well as intimate, sometimes elegiac portraits of artists, activists, and HIV-positive people Peck knew. Peck's fiery rhetoric against a government that sat on its hands for the first several years of the epidemic is tinged with the idealism of a young gay man discovering his political, artistic, and sexual identity. The result is a book that is as rich in ideas as it is in feeling. A visionary and indispensable work from one of America's most brilliant and controversial authors"-- Provided by publisher.

ISBN:

1616954418

9781616954413

9781616954420

1616954426

OCLC:

884298175

Publisher Number:

99962928208