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AIDS, in its worldwide rampage, has infected over 27.9 people and killed 9.2 million. In its latest frightful exploit, AIDS has infected literature itself. Since stories whose main characters have AIDS end only one way--never happily--their writers are presented with the particularly difficult problem of turning the reader's attention away from the grim plot trajectory and toward the characters' development...
...brilliant new novel, Plays Well With Others. It follows the trend of contemporary literature that includes Rent and Angels in America, in which characters have, and eventually die of, AIDS In this contribution, Gurganus offers up his characters--his loved ones--without pretense, and simply lets the reader live their experience. "I do not want to rush," he continues. "The hierarchy of suffering sets in too soon. What starts as your own self-armoring way of surviving can soon (especially in New York City) become The New Careerism. Manhattan Person A says: 'I've lost most of my friends...
...affectionately calls the rag-tag artists his "white and wounded fluffy baby birds." They are each other's best friends and worst critics, literally living through everything together and nurturing each other to the very last. "I don't consider myself psychic, just lucky--with friends," says Hartley. The reader, in being included in the circle, is equally fortunate...
While it might seem appropriate for those who have not read the book to pigeon-hole it as the record of a cultural moment--a peek into the lives of artists with AIDS in '80s New York--Gurganus insists that the reader love the book for the humanness of its characters. "We have all been upstaged by the newsworthiness of our particular disaster," writes Gurganus/Hartley in one of the story's more pointed moments. In Plays Well With Others, however, Gurganus triumphs in crafting an emotionally and literarily memorable work...
...look past these expected barriers, Wobegon Boy can prove to be quite an entertaining read. But the question remains--can the average, non-Midwestern reader appreciate Keillor's morality-twinged humor...