Visions and Revisions
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.40 (611 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1616956445 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 224 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2017-11-02 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
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 is a sweeping, collage-style portrait of a tumultuous era. 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. 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 o
"A Rambling Mess" according to J. Dorazio. At the risk of sounding cynical, I should have known better when the NYTimes Book Review magazine described Dale Peck's latest book as "engaging." This rambling mess is anything but. Not sure what the subtitle "Coming of Age in the Age of AIDS" has to do with the opening of the book which is a tediously written account of serial murders, and the authorities reluctance to investigate them as an example of the rampant institutional homophobia of the day, a point the author could have made in a couple of sentences. Peck's story is so poorly written that I struggled to get thr. "Surprisingly Energetic Read" according to Wilhelmina Zeitgeist. "Visions and Revisions" by Dale Peck is a essay/memoir of coming out as a gay man at the height of the AIDS epidemic. It's personal, raw, honest, and so sublime. A well written book with excellent flow and pitch perfect prose. The author provides us with a type of literary timeline for the history of HIV and AIDS. It is a surprisingly energizing read that was a hard one to put down, even after I finished it.A book I feel any socially conscience person needs to read.. "Poetic Justice" according to KarenRachel. Dale Peck's Visions and Revisions is part memoir and part historical and cultural analysis written in a fierce, tight and poetic style that brought me right back to those horrible and life-changing days before protease inhibitors. While not a full history of ACT UP it gives an excellent sense of what it was like to organize when it was a matter of life and death and there was nothing to lose. While sometimes it seems as if it was so long ago and that the communities that was created, especially in large cities, have moved on, I still see remnants of it in #BlackLivesMatter
In addition, Peck’s smart, compassionate, insightful book reminds us that, though that journey has been long and hard, it is something to be remembered and to be proud of." —Metrosource "Although a relatively short memoir, Visions and Revisions comes to contain an indispensable mini-canon of cultural theory, essay, and reportage from the crisis. As more and more people—infectious disease physicians included—have dimmer recollections of the horrible march of HIV in 1980 and 1990s America, immersing oneself in the early days of the plague with a colorful tour guide becomes increasingly more important." —Dr. And love. "—San Francisco Chronicle"A coming-of-age tale for both th
Dale Peck is the author of twelve books in a variety of genres, including Martin and John, Hatchet Jobs, and Sprout, and is the editor of The Soho Press Book of ’80s Short Fiction. His fiction and criticism have appeared in dozens of publications, and have earned him two O. He lives in New York City, where he has taught in the New School’s graduate wr