Plays well with others /
It's 1980, and Hartley Mims Jr., a somewhat overbred Southerner, arrives in town to found his artistic career and find a circle of brilliant friends. He soon discovers both Robert Christian Gustafson, archangelic boy composer of Symphony no. 1: The Titanic, and Alabama Byrnes, a failed Savannah...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York :
Alfred A. Knopf,
1997.
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| Edition: | First edition. |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Sample text Contributor biographical information Publisher description |
| Summary: | It's 1980, and Hartley Mims Jr., a somewhat overbred Southerner, arrives in town to found his artistic career and find a circle of brilliant friends. He soon discovers both Robert Christian Gustafson, archangelic boy composer of Symphony no. 1: The Titanic, and Alabama Byrnes, a failed Savannah debutante whose gigantic paintings reveal an outsized talent that she, five feet tall, can't always live up to. This circle--sexually venturesome, frequently hungry, hooked on courage, caffeine, and the promise of immortality--makes history and most everybody else. Their dramatic moment in New York history might've been a collaboration begun, as a toast, by Cole Porter and finished, as pure elegy, by Poe himself. It chronicles a ragtag group of gifted kids who come to seek their fortunes; they find the low-paying joys of making art and the heady education only multiple erotic partners can provide. Having mythologized each other through the boom years, having commenced becoming "names," they suddenly encounter a brand-new disease like something out of fifth-rate sci-fi. Friends are soon questioning how much they really owe each other; they're left with the ancient consolation of one another's company and help. We watch this egotistic circle forge its single greatest masterwork: a healthy community.--Back cover. A novel on a group of artists in New York--writers, painters, musicians--founded by a gay Southern writer. The novel chronicles their life before and after AIDS. |
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| Item Description: | The Cushing Library/Women & Gender Studies copy was acquired as part of The Don Kelly Research Collection of Gay Literature and Culture. The Cushing Library/Women & Gender Studies copy is signed by the author. |
| Physical Description: | 337, 16 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm |
| ISBN: | 0394589149 9780394589145 057119494X 9780571194940 0375702032 9780375702037 |