Choire Sicha
Autore di Very Recent History: An Entirely Factual Account of a Year (c. AD 2009) in a Large City
Opere di Choire Sicha
Opere correlate
Wonkette 1 copia
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Sesso
- male
Utenti
Recensioni
Premi e riconoscimenti
Potrebbero anche piacerti
Autori correlati
Statistiche
- Opere
- 1
- Opere correlate
- 1
- Utenti
- 80
- Popolarità
- #224,854
- Voto
- 3.6
- Recensioni
- 5
- ISBN
- 3
The year is 2009, so right after the crash and the heart of the Great Recession. Most of the characters are in their 20s, most are trying to break into the New York cultural production economy. Most are living on very little money, either low-paying media jobs or patching together gig economy stuff. Nothing really goes on, except little things like getting sick, not being able to pay bills, losing jobs, gaining jobs, and falling in and out of love and lust. Lots of sex (all offpage), lots of partying, all told in a voice that's not exactly deadpan but close to it. And sprinkled in among the seemingly aimlessness of our characters' everyday existence is the big stuff: the brutality of the recession, even for people who have safety nets, the absence of an older generation of gay men and the implications of that for cultural transmission, mentoring, and community (briefly mentioned but it stays with you throughout the story and after you've closed the book). I'm much older that the characters here, but my generation's 20s shared plenty of features with this one, and it brought those back to me.
The voice can get a bit tiring, and the relationships, people, and places can kind of run together (I think that's part of the point). I would have liked some kind of arc to pace the course of the year, if only more on the seasons changing (there is a little bit of that and it's great).
If you like the first 25 pages, you'll like the book. But it's not like other books. I've seen it shelved in Sociology, but it's not at all like an academic monograph or ethnography. It's somewhere between a slice-of-life of a community, a memoir, and a novel.… (altro)