E-book
Visions and revisions [electronic resource] : Coming of age in the age of aids. Dale Peck.
Record details
- ISBN: 9781616954420 (electronic bk)
- Physical Description: 1 online resource
Content descriptions
| Summary, etc.: | "A coming-of-age tale for both the gay community at large and a nation coming to terms with that community's place in American society" ( The Boston Globe ). Part memoir, part extended essay, Visions and Revisions is a foray into the period between 1987, when the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) was founded, and 1996, when medical advances transformed AIDS from a virtual death sentence into a chronic manageable illness. Offering a sweeping, collage-style portrait of a tumultuous era, this book takes readers from the serial killings of gay men in New York, London, and Milwaukee, through Dale 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. Named as one of 2015's best nonfiction books by Flavorwire , the narrative pays particular attention to the words and deeds of AIDS activists, offering a street-level portrait of ACT UP and considerations of AIDS-centered fiction and criticism of the time—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 flinty-eyed look into the heart of the H.I.V. epidemic, from the late 1980s until the development of protease inhibitors and combination therapies in the mid-1990s [and] a compelling snapshot of the social activism that defined the era" ( The New York Times Book Review ). |
| Reproduction Note: | Electronic reproduction. New York : Soho Press, 2018. Requires the Libby app or a modern web browser. |
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Fiction. LGBTQIA+ (Fiction). Literature. |
| Genre: | Electronic books. |
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Electronic resources
Library Journal Review
Visions and Revisions : Coming of Age in the Age of AIDs
Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Activist, critic, and novelist Peck (Body Surfing) presents a collection of essays consisting of memoir and criticism covering the period 1987-96, the founding of ACT UP to the advent of lifesaving combination drug therapy for AIDS. The subject matter ranges from activist history to personal journals, from cultural criticism to journalistic coverage of serial killings of gay men. Peck is fearlessly and graphically self-revelatory in this portrait of an era shaped by fear and death that nonetheless created relationships and connections not otherwise possible. Narrator Jeff Woodman's frank reading creates a sense of intimacy. VERDICT Recommended for listeners interested in a vivid portrait of the time who are willing to mix some literary criticism with the memoir format. ["A powerful, gritty social commentary complemented by the author's coming-of-age story as a young adult during this tumultuous time. Recommended for progressive biography and memoir readers, human rights activists, and contemporary American history enthusiasts": LJ 3/15/15 review of the Soho hc.]-Jason Puckett, Georgia State Univ. Lib., Atlanta © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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BookList Review
Visions and Revisions : Coming of Age in the Age of AIDs
Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Novelist (The Garden of Lost and Found, 2007) and infamous literary critic Peck presents a scholarly mix of memoir and a long-form essay about every facet of AIDS and its consequences during the 1990s. Moving personal recollections about his coming out and first loves segue into literary discussions of such writers as Gide, Proust, Genet, and his keen critique of media coverage of the AIDS epidemic. Death is present throughout this intense narrative, but it appears as a theme with particularly dark power in Peck's gutsy paralleling of the devastating impact of AIDS on the gay community with the horrors of gay serial killers of the era, namely John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer. Peck digs into the causes for social and governmental disinterest in, even disdain for, the entire AIDS disaster, and profiles seminal AIDS activists. Peck contrasts his findings about this tragic and frightening time of ignorance, discrimination, fear, suffering, and lack of compassion and support with today's far more enlightened attitudes toward illness, health care, and LGBT people.--Scott, Whitney Copyright 2015 Booklist
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