Status
Call number
Collection
Publication
Description
"Jasper has died." "Dominic is probably dying in Los Angeles." "Jasper, older by almost a generation, was for many years Timothy's lover. Among Jasper's infidelities was a brisk fling with Dominic. Timothy and Dominic are having dinner in Los Angeles after viewing Dominic's taped appearance on a nationally televised quiz show. They have maintained their ambivalent friendship for twenty years. Tonight their conversation is lively but guarded. Timothy has not told Dominic of Jasper's death; Dominic doesn't inquire into Timothy's own state, and this is a question Timothy is in no hurry to answer." "Through Timothy's eyes, we see that though AIDS can be deadly, it can also be taken, as Timothy chooses to, as a challenge to live. His thoughts are filled by memories of Jasper, and he takes the reader on a vivid tour of male sex at its most untamed - as it was in the seventies and the eighties - when the explosion of AIDS forced thousands of men to take a new direction. We feel the press of bodies along the waterfront of Manhattan, in the boites, and even the streets of Paris." "It is possible Timothy will even come away from this dinner with a heightened understanding of Jasper, and of their long and lost romance. It is certain that the reader will be rewarded by the deeper insights of this harrowing (and often hilarious) account of love between men in such times."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved… (more)
User reviews
I had a love/hate relationship with this novel.
What I loved was the history it provided concerning the early days of the AIDS crisis, what life was like and how the disease changed everything. What I loved was how TImothy changed once he learned his own status. He went from interests in cooking and in music, with which he would begin with gusto only to taper off once his enthusiasm waned, to finally finding something to hold his interest, something to fight against and to keep him active rather than sitting on the sidelines. Timothy questions everything about HIV and AIDS, wants to learn all there is about it, to be up-to-date so that maybe, he will be able to save himself and his friends.
What I hated was the characters themselves. I never believed in Timothy's love for Jasper, a man who seemed to fake an interest in Timothy though he had another, longer-term relationship all the while he and Timothy were together. I wanted Timothy to stop being a wuss, to show as much passion for his own happiness as he was giving to HIV/AIDS research, to give Jasper an ultimatum -- "it's him or me", if you will -- rather than remaining constantly indifferent to where the relationship was really going. At one point early on in the story, after a few hours of passionate lovemaking, Timothy catches Jasper walking around the streets of Paris with a young hustler in his arm -- and he doesn't really do anything other than show a slight distaste, perhaps a little anger, but nothing close to how I felt he should react.
So I give this a mixed review. For a chronicle of early life with HIV and AIDS, "Such Times" is a great read. I just had something else in mind regarding the characters themselves.