A moving take on the AIDS tragedy, with the pathos cut by jaunty sex scenes.
Philadelphia’s gay community confronts AIDS while trying to hold onto joy in this bittersweet novel.
Karl’s follow-up to Clubbed (2021) finds Joey and his husband, Henry, forging into the 1980s, still managing their nightclub, Sanctuary, as their customers and friends are thinned out by Philadelphia’s AIDS epidemic. There’s a somber edge to the narrative as funerals pile up—one minister officiates at so many that he becomes suicidal—but also a note of defiance and resilience. The gay scene becomes more out and militant as ACT UP and other activist organizations speak out and offer help to stricken patients. Joey and Henry declare their pride by emblazoning Sanctuary’s outer wall with a mural of James Baldwin. There’s plenty of fun still to be had, with each fundraiser furnishing a pretext for a costume pageant—Joey enlists the drag queen BaeBae to help him perfect his Cabaret-vintage Liza Minnelli—and Spanking Sundays remaining a Sanctuary fixture. And the sex barely slows down as Joey and Henry continue bringing strangers home for orgies—two swimmers they meet in San Francisco, the cute guy at the animal shelter—while carefully following safe-sex procedures that pose no impediment to volcanic climaxes. (They steer clear of the nihilistic “gifting parties”—unprotected orgies—that kill some of their acquaintances.) Karl’s writing is even more vigorous and lubricious here than in Clubbed, as Joey continues to happily subordinate himself to the bullish dom Henry and they indulge in new kinks in lascivious detail. At one point, Joey relates: “That’s when they put their feet close together, so Henry’s right big toe was next to Dagen’s left big toe, and I swallowed both of their big toes at once, enjoying the taste, the smell, and the knowledge that both of these men would never forget how they joined forces to place me in a position of extreme submission.” But the author also explores less frothy realities, like the hardships a disabled veteran faces in navigating Sanctuary and the plangent insecurity of an unattractive gay man: “I don’t want to accept who I am….I want to be pretty too!” The result is a complex, engrossing vision of a gay scene that’s determined to find solidarity and pleasure amid the pain.
A moving take on the AIDS tragedy, with the pathos cut by jaunty sex scenes.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-73651-815-1
Page Count: 295
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.
Who was Shakespeare?
Move over, Earl of Oxford and Francis Bacon: There’s another contender for the true author of plays attributed to the bard of Stratford—Emilia Bassano, a clever, outspoken, educated woman who takes center stage in Picoult’s spirited novel. Of Italian heritage, from a family of court musicians, Emilia was a hidden Jew and the courtesan of a much older nobleman who vetted plays to be performed for Queen Elizabeth. She was well traveled—unlike Shakespeare, she visited Italy and Denmark, where, Picoult imagines, she may have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—and was familiar with court intrigue and English law. “Every gap in Shakespeare’s life or knowledge that has had to be explained away by scholars, she somehow fills,” Picoult writes. Encouraged by her lover, Emilia wrote plays and poetry, but 16th-century England was not ready for a female writer. Picoult interweaves Emilia’s story with that of her descendant Melina Green, an aspiring playwright, who encounters the same sexist barriers to making herself heard that Emilia faced. In alternating chapters, Picoult follows Melina’s frustrated efforts to get a play produced—a play about Emilia, who Melina is certain sold her work to Shakespeare. Melina’s play, By Any Other Name, “wasn’t meant to be a fiction; it was meant to be the resurrection of an erasure.” Picoult creates a richly detailed portrait of daily life in Elizabethan England, from sumptuous castles to seedy hovels. Melina’s story is less vivid: Where Emilia found support from the witty Christopher Marlowe, Melina has a fashion-loving gay roommate; where Emilia faces the ravages of repeated outbreaks of plague, for Melina, Covid-19 occurs largely offstage; where Emilia has a passionate affair with the adoring Earl of Southampton, Melina’s lover is an awkward New York Times theater critic. It’s Emilia’s story, and Picoult lovingly brings her to life.
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780593497210
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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