Gone Tomorrow [Hardcover]

Gary Indiana (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 7, 1995

By the author of "Horse Crazy", this is an evocative first-person narrative of decadence by a jaded, disfigured young actor. It is set in 1984, amid the rot and corruption of Colombia, where a serial killer is on the loose. Against this background, a film director sets to work with actors and crew.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

New York, Munich and Cartagena, Colombia are the scenes of reckless decadence and excess in the early dawn of the AIDS epidemic, as recounted in this ambitious, uneven chronicle of a charismatic gay filmmaker's final years. Two friends of the late Paul Grosvener meet in New York in 1991 and discuss, over cocktails and joints, circumstances that led to his somewhat mysterious death. The narrative flashes back seven years to Cartagena, where Paul is directing a movie. Surrounded by corruption and poverty, stultified by excessive heat, drugs, liquor and sex, a motley crew of ex-Nazis, native Colombians, cosmopolitan actors and "cinema types"--narcissists and grotesques--butt heads as they struggle to bring Paul's obscure vision to the screen. The second part of the novel recounts Paul's lover's horrible death from AIDS, Paul's own contraction of the virus, and the intrigue of his suicide. Indiana ( Horse Crazy ) frustrates the reader with his inconsistent first-person narrative. Contemplating life in the face of death he presents keen insights both through symbolism and through overt discussion; but at times his prose becomes overburdened with ostentatious mixed metaphors and almost Chandleresque similes that create an incongruous, mocking tone. Reminding us that he is not omniscient, Indiana's narrator disrupts his own story with frequent asides. Still, this is an intelligent, evocative treatment of an all too timely and difficult subject.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

The first half of Indiana's new book, told in flashback, relates the pre-AIDS drug- and sex-drenched 1984 location shoot, in a vividly detailed Colombia, of a movie being made by a bunch of self-indulgent Euro-trash filmmakers. As told by one of its actors, the book details, years later, the very messy death from AIDS of director Paul's lover and finally Paul's self-willed demise. If nothing else, Indiana is daring, both in the oddly forceful convention-breaking structure of the narrative and in the horrific excesses of his mostly unlikable characters. (The mostly homosexual sex, including a coupling in front of a crematory at present-day Dachau, is easily X-rated.) However, Indiana ( Horse Crazy , LJ 5/15/89) skillfully if brutally uses this deliberate tendency to pornography as an often-moving statement about the debased quality of our brain-dead culture and the raging nihilism of AIDS. This is not a pretty picture, but it's brave and it works, often powerfully.
- David Bartholomew,
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Random House Value Publishing (June 7, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517116863
• ISBN-13: 978-0517116869
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,372,621 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Dark, Disturbing, yeah....It's about AIDS, you a**holes, September 6, 2007

By 

Brian C. Bauman "brian bauman" (boulder, co) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gone Tomorrow (High Risk Books) (Paperback)

This book, like all of Indiana's writing, is difficult, but that doesn't mean it's unfulfilling. The prose is vivid, the atmosphere is fully-rendered, and the characters are fascinating. I finished the book and immediately started it over again. A lost classic.

2 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disgusting, cruel, unfunny book, January 26, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Gone Tomorrow (High Risk Books) (Paperback)

I guess the author thought his subjects were funny--disabled people, sick people, people dying. If so, he's the only one. I finished the book only to see if it could get even worse, the writing so sloppy, the characters tinny, and the situations entirely cruel in their exaggeration. I couldn't find one single insight into gay life (or any life) that makes this book worth keeping, and I didn't.