Carter Sickels
Autore di The Prettiest Star
Sull'Autore
Opere di Carter Sickels
Opere correlate
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Luogo di residenza
- Portland, Oregon, USA
- Premi e riconoscimenti
- Lambda Literary Award (Dr. Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Awards ∙ 2013)
Utenti
Recensioni
Liste
Feminism (1)
Premi e riconoscimenti
Potrebbero anche piacerti
Autori correlati
Statistiche
- Opere
- 3
- Opere correlate
- 3
- Utenti
- 227
- Popolarità
- #99,086
- Voto
- 3.9
- Recensioni
- 10
- ISBN
- 10
If it doesn’t affect you that way, you can just put it down to my hormones being aflutter, but I found this to be charged mainly because there was thoughtfulness and understanding for every character Sickels depicted, not just the main character, Brian. People are so multi-faceted. There are so few of us who are all good or all evil, every one of us falls in between, although some tip the scales more to one side than the other. (Okay, there is one character in this book that I would label evil, but he isn't a main character and even he is probably more insecure and afraid than we know).
It is 1986 and Brian has AIDS. He is from the mountains in Ohio but has been living in New York City, but the death of his partner and his knowledge that he is dying makes him decide to return home to his family; a family who has never openly acknowledged that Brian is even gay. I lived through the 1980s and the AIDS epidemic. I know the fear and horror of this time. I witnessed first hand the disgusting lack of compassion on the parts of so many and the difficult struggle of other, good people, to understand and not condemn in a world that was more accepting if you would.
What Brian endures, what his parents endure, how his little sister copes, how this small town reacts; all of these things rang 100% true. It made me hurt to see this young man lose his life when it had barely begun. I felt for his mother who just wanted to love her son and protect him from this horrible disease and, perhaps worse, from the viciousness of the town that she had felt so much a part of her life. I even felt sorry for the father who just could not come to grips with the truth, so buried his head in the sand, missing his only chance to know who his son was. My heart swelled with pride for Brian’s grandmother, who puts her love first and never feels an ounce of the shame her neighbors seem to want to force upon her, and for his friends Annie and Andrew who show that true love and bravery are what truly matter.
The only way for my family to get their lives back is for me to go. How sad would it be to feel that at the end of your life?
Sickels writes beautifully and thoughtfully. He tackles death and reminds us that any death, every death, is a loss and that the next death might be our own. Every character here must face the reality of death and reach for some kind of comfort. Brian’s sister, Jess, imagines that we become whales at our ends:
Nothing transforms, there is no magic. Or, does everything transform? I hesitate, and then reach up and touch my brother’s face. His skin is warm. I don’t pray anymore, but sometimes I dream. Giant, enormous, beautiful bodies. All of us together in the ocean. We die and we swim.
For one who has sat beside a sick bed and gone from hoping and praying for the survival of the ill to praying for the cessation of the suffering, I got how hard it was for this family to watch this slow deterioration.
We’re waiting. We don’t want the moment to come, we do.
I hated reading this book. I loved it.
… (altro)