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Fiction. Literature. LGBTQIA+ (Fiction.) HTML: "A sprawling account of New York lives under the long shadow of AIDS, it deals beautifully with the drugs that save us and the drugs that don't."�??The Guardian (Best Books of the Year) In this vivid and compelling novel, Tim Murphy follows a diverse set of characters whose fates intertwine in an iconic building in Manhattan's East Village, the Christodora. The Christodora is home to Milly and Jared, a privileged young couple with artistic ambitions. Their neighbor, Hector, a Puerto Rican gay man who was once a celebrated AIDS activist but is now a lonely addict, becomes connected to Milly and Jared's lives in ways none of them can anticipate. Meanwhile, Milly and Jared's adopted son Mateo grows to see the opportunity for both self-realization and oblivion that New York offers. As the junkies and protestors of the 1980s give way to the hipsters of the 2000s and they, in turn, to the wealthy residents of the crowded, glass-towered city of the 2020s, enormous changes rock the personal lives of Milly and Jared and the constellation of people around them. Moving kaleidoscopically from the Tompkins Square Riots and attempts by activists to galvanize a true response to the AIDS epidemic, to the New York City of the future, Christodora recounts the heartbreak wrought by AIDS, illustrates the allure and destructive power of hard drugs, and brings to life the ever-changing city itself. "A rich and complicated New York saga . . . Christodora has the scope of other New York epics, such as Bonfire of the Vanities, The Goldfinch and City on Fire."�??Newsday… (more)
User reviews
Murphy does an outstanding job slow-building empathy for the characters, many of whom are bundles of bad choices resulting in terrible consequences. Central to the story is a pair of (secular) Jewish East Village artists married to one another who adopt the child of a Latina AIDS activist, who dies from complications arising from HIV/AIDS. The child proves to be an artist in his own right, but in his teenage years rebels against his parents and ultimate becomes a heroin addict--destroying many lives on the way. This child's finding his way as an adult to a kind of redemption and amends-making -- however incomplete -- is the main thrust of the story.
If Murphy's novel suffers from a defect, it is that some of the storytelling seems to have been shaped to fit the HIV/AIDS history, instead of growing organically from the characters. For the most part, though, these maddening characters manage to carry the narrative forward, and Murphy does not fall prey to the need to wrap up all the loose ends.