The Medicine Burns: And Other Stories (High Risk Books) [Paperback]

Adam Klein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2000 | Series: High Risk Books

This collection of stories about gay men aim to shed light on the role of the outsider in a society obsessed with beauty and sex. Klein's protagonists have acne, they have club feet, they are drag queens, and in some cases, they have AIDS.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Taken separately, the short stories in this debut collection are brief slices of bitterness. Taken together, they describe a gay coming of age and a coming to grips with human frailty. In the first story, the physical manifestation is genetic: the club foot the narrator inherited from his mother. After a party at which his guests dress up in his mother's clothing and makeup, his parents discover his sexual preference. "All I wanted was for you to have a chance at a normal life," his mother says. "It's like you've chosen to be deformed." In the title story, the narrator recounts the parallel tales of his painful acne treatment and the doomed affair between a friend (a member of "the secret club of beautiful men") and a married man. By "Dr. K.," though, the body's betrayal is fatal: with the narrator's lover dying, he begins an affair with a man whose lover has killed himself. After inquiring about the lover, he adds apologetically that "Storytelling... is what people do during the plague-they hole up somewhere and have a round table." Klein's evocation of both an individual and a culture maturing and entering a funereal phase is strong, and although there are weak patches here and there when imagery gets in the way of meaning-especially in "India," which stumbles pointlessly about-his direct, economical language hammers these stories home with a single stroke.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Klein's strong stories limn the lives of people living on the fringes: gawky adolescent boys struggling with problem skin and inexplicable urges toward other boys; a teenager born clubfooted whose deformity bonds him to his seductive, guilt-instilling mother; a recovering junkie whose HIV-negative status makes him stand out from those around him, who all seem to be HIV infected. In the longest story, "India," we meet a young man dying of AIDS who seems an outsider even to his lover's life and death. After seeing that his lover's body is cremated, though, he journeys to India, where he must be dependent on the kindness of strangers as he hovers, not quite dying, on the fringes of death. A strong addition to gay and lesbian literature. Whitney Scott

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Serpent's Tail; First Edition edition (May 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1852424036
• ISBN-13: 978-1852424039
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,120,887 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dark but engrossing, June 19, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Medicine Burns: And Other Stories (High Risk Books) (Paperback)

Nice style and well written. I read this a while ago but it stayed with me.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read this. It is good., December 17, 2001

By 

"spuds-nabokov" (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Medicine Burns: And Other Stories (High Risk Books) (Paperback)

Klein sure knows how to dance, but with words, baby. With words. I enjoyed this read. It has guts, swings along and then hits you like a half baked pie --- pow. Like a weeping monkey in the garden, or a squealing cat in the laundry. Sad, yes. Wounded, hounded and powerful fiction, oh double yes.
If you like JT Leroy, this book will make you happy.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A bit depressing but nicely written, July 9, 2001

By 

DONALD G. FOX "Santee Sioux" (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Medicine Burns: And Other Stories (High Risk Books) (Paperback)

I read a used copy of this book. The author deals with pain...the pain of recognizing and claiming one's sexual identity and the pain of living life until death. The stories are nicely written with great description and expression of feeling.