Visions and Revisions

Visions and Revisions

Novelist and critic Dale Peckâ€™s latest workâ€”part memoir, part extended essayâ€”is a foray into what the author calls â€œthe second half of the first half of the AIDS epidemic,â€ 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 Didionâ€™s The White Album and Kurt Vonnegutâ€™s Palm Sunday, Visions and Revisions is a sweeping, collage-style portrait of a tumultuous era. Moving seamlessly from the lyrical to the analytical to the reportorial, Peckâ€™s story takes readers from the serial killings of gay men in New York, London, and Milwaukee, through Peckâ€™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 streetlevel 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. Peckâ€™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 Americaâ€™s most brilliant and controversial authors.

Country	USA
Author	Dale Peck
Binding	Hardcover
EAN	9781616954413
ISBN	1616954418
Label	Soho Press
Manufacturer	Soho Press
NumberOfItems	1
NumberOfPages	240
PublicationDate	2015-04-07
Publisher	Soho Press
ReleaseDate	2015-04-07
Studio	Soho Press

Visions and Revisions

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