Spontaneous Combustion
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B.J. Rosenthal--the dishy, neurotic, horny, cranky, and adamantly gay hero of Feinberg's Eighty-Sixed--is resurrected in this harrowing and insightful novel about AIDS and ...Publishers WeeklyIn content and in style, this tres gay sequel to Eighty-Sixed is a mixed bag--a smart drawstring purse, as man-hungry protagonist B.J. Rosenthal might say. Spanning the period from January 1985 to June 1990 (with a coyly prophetic appendix, ``After the Cure''), the novel chronicles amatory capers overshadowed by the specter of AIDS. ``I might as well buy condolence cards wholesale,'' laments B.J., who himself tests positive for the virus. Morbidity, however, is intermittently kept at bay by a dizzying parade of B.J.'s friends and paramours, whose dishy dialogue frequently makes them indistinguishable from one another. Confusing, too, are some of the time sequences: Feinberg's tangents have tangents, and he often seems to be writing in never-ending parenthetical asides. The tone is giddily and unremittingly New York, and the parade of retro repartee (``pure as the driven slush'') wears thin. Feinberg reins in the one-liners as the tone grows less determinedly fey, and there is real poignancy in one character's final days. While B.J.'s droll tone is ingratiating, readers may wish his voice were more consistent and less capricious. (Nov.)
\ Publishers Weekly\ - Publisher's Weekly\ In content and in style, this tres gay sequel to Eighty-Sixed is a mixed bag--a smart drawstring purse, as man-hungry protagonist B.J. Rosenthal might say. Spanning the period from January 1985 to June 1990 (with a coyly prophetic appendix, ``After the Cure''), the novel chronicles amatory capers overshadowed by the specter of AIDS. ``I might as well buy condolence cards wholesale,'' laments B.J., who himself tests positive for the virus. Morbidity, however, is intermittently kept at bay by a dizzying parade of B.J.'s friends and paramours, whose dishy dialogue frequently makes them indistinguishable from one another. Confusing, too, are some of the time sequences: Feinberg's tangents have tangents, and he often seems to be writing in never-ending parenthetical asides. The tone is giddily and unremittingly New York, and the parade of retro repartee (``pure as the driven slush'') wears thin. Feinberg reins in the one-liners as the tone grows less determinedly fey, and there is real poignancy in one character's final days. While B.J.'s droll tone is ingratiating, readers may wish his voice were more consistent and less capricious. (Nov.)\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalB.J. Rosenthal, the neurotic and witty hero of Feinberg's successful first novel Eighty-Sixed ( LJ 11/1/88), is back, continuing his tale of life in the post-AIDS gay community of New York. Amidst the ``constant tide of deaths,'' B.J. tests positive for HIV antibodies, attends ACT UP meetings, has phone sex, begins taking AZT, gets arrested in a protest, and attempts to tell his mother about his seropositive status. All the while, he searches for a boyfriend, ``hopefully with a life expectancy longer than that of my five-day deodorant.'' Feinberg covers five years in an overly episodic fashion with a hero who, for all his honesty, isn't much deeper than a dime and whose friends remain flat sketches. Combined with the subject matter, the result is oddly cursory. Nonetheless, this remains a compelling and often funny record of the resiliency of gay men during the past decade. Recommended.-- Brian Kenney, St. John's Univ. Lib., Jamaica, N.Y.\ \
