The Normal Heart and the Destiny of Me [Paperback]

Larry Kramer (Author), Tony Kushner (foreword) (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 18, 2000

The Normal Heart, set during the early years of the AIDS epidemic, is the impassioned indictment of a society that allowed the plague to happen, a moving denunciation of the ignorance and fear that helped kill an entire generation. It has been produced and taught all over the world. Its companion play, The Destiny of Me, is the stirring story of an AIDS activist forced to put his life in the hands of the very doctor he has been denouncing.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

The Normal Heart, set during the early days of the AIDS epidemic, is the impassioned story of Ned Weeks. The play is a moving denunciation of the ignorance and fear that lead to the worldwide plague that now exists. Its companion play, The Destiny of Me, continues the story of Weeks, now in a hospital undergoing treatment, as he finds himself confronting his life and fighting to get a little more time among the living.

The Normal Heart was selected as one of the 100 Greatest Plays of the Twentieth Century by the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain

"An extraordinary play! It is bracing and exciting to hear so much passion and intelligence. Kramer produces a cross fire of life-and-death energies that create a fierce and moving human drama."--Jack Kroll, Newsweek

"The blood that's coursing through The Normal Heart is boiling hot. There can be little doubt that it is the most outspoken play round."--Frank Rich, The New York Times

"Kramer's astounding drama about AIDS is too urgent to ignore! An astounding drama...a damning indictment of a nation in the middle of an epidemic with its head in the sand. It will make your hair stand on end even as the tears spurt from your eyes. Dynamite!"--Liz Smith, New York Daily News

"Wired with anger, electric with rage.... Powerful stuff."--The Boston Globe

"No one who cares about the future of the human race can afford to miss The Normal Heart."--Rex Reed

"The Normal Heart has broken a great silence.... It has put politics and journalism to shame for the cover-up of a major disaster and one of the great moral dramas of our time."--Francis Fitzgerald, author of Fire in the Lake

"Impassioned writing...explosively powerful...uniquely important."--The Advocate

"I haven't been this involved--upset-in too damn long. Kramer honors us with this stormy, articulate theatrical work."--Harold Prince

"Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart is arguably the best political play of that schizophrenic decade and definitely the definitive dramatic exploration of the early years of the AIDS crisis."--Chicago Tribune

"Larry Kramer's 1988 masterwork refuses to date."--Chicago Reader

"Kramer's play actually may work better now in the tragic hindsight of history."--Chicago Sun-Times

The Destiny of Me was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, a double Obie winner, and the recipient of the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Play of the Year.

"In The Destiny of Me, Larry Kramer has written a worthy sequel to The Normal Heart. What Kramer captures expertly in the past is family relations in their ambiguities, hostilities, and reconciliations...and almost equally skillfully in the present, the bristling relations of patient and doctor, patient and nurse.... A kind of--and this is meant as praise--Jewish-homosexual Long Day's Journey Into Night."--John Simon, New York

"Searing!"--Vanity Fair

"Gives new hope to the American theater. One of the year's ten best.... Poignant, most moving, enriching."--Time

"Overwhelmingly powerful...scaldingly honest...a seismic jolt of visceral theatricality!"--Frank Rich, The New York Times

"A harrowing, emotionally naked family-memory-AIDS play, playful and moving, personable and disturbing, with scenes of devastating counterpoint. The work of a theater artist...like Arthur Miller at his best."--Newsday

"Driven by a fierce honesty and searing pain, Kramer's emotional and moral urgency fills The Destiny of Me with irresistible human truth."--Newsweek

"A mature work by a gifted American playwright in his prime...bitter and angry and full of biting humor."--The Wall Street Journal

"The Destiny of Me is bigger than any one of us. The Long Day's Journey comparisons are apt. At long last Kramer the activist has leashed in Kramer the polemicist, letting loose Kramer the artist."--QW

"The Destiny of Me is a beautiful, somber play, very mature, and very personal. Plays are meant for presentation. Great plays also stand well as great literature. This is one of them. Kramer proves once again his place as one of the best writers of our times."--Lambda Book Report

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; 1st Grove Press ed edition (September 18, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802136923
• ISBN-13: 978-0802136923
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #258,133 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Normal Heart, Magnificent Play, June 22, 2004

By 

Rafael Bueno "rabbit1970" (Alexandria, VA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Normal Heart and the Destiny of Me (Paperback)

While I consider myself a regular theatre-goer, I've always been aware of Kramer's plays and opinions, yet I haven't seen nor read either of these two plays. That changed this past weekend when I saw the revival of Normal Heart currently playing off-Broadway. This is a viscerally emotional piece of theatre and it makes one feel impassioned about what was going on in the world then and sheds a new light as to what's going on now in regards to the HIV/AIDS crisis. It's a must red if you don't have a chance to see it.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The first important AIDS plays, August 5, 2002

By 

James Fisher (Greensboro, North Carolina) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Normal Heart and the Destiny of Me (Paperback)

These two plays, linked by the central character (author Larry Kramer's alter-ego), are among the most important documents related to AIDS and gay life in America in the 1980s. Although some found Kramer's activism too shrill in the 80s, he has been proven right about almost everything he foresaw in regards to AIDS. THE NORMAL HEART is a docu-drama in which Kramer sends his angry central character through all facets of American life where he discovers only apathy, failure, and cover-ups regarding the AIDS epidemic. THE DESTINY OF ME continues the story of the central character, taking a more personal approach to the AIDS epidemic and, particularly, provides a portrait of a man whose activism is driven as much by the epidemic as by his family and his personal life. THE NORMAL HEART is frequently produced and deserves to be, it appropriately raises the issues that continue to hamper the defeat of AIDS and the equality of gays and lesbians in American society. Playwright Tony Kushner's introduction is a valuable response to Kramer's significance.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Most Important Gay Play of the 80s, October 9, 2007

By 

Jack of All Books (Las Vegas, NV USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Normal Heart and the Destiny of Me (Paperback)

There is no better insight about the treatment of homosexuals in the mid-eighties. People may not know how swept under the rug homosexuals were. Families didn't want anything to do with their gay relatives, and governments didn't want to show the gay community any sympathy. Read this play and maybe you'll learn something. The AIDS epidemic in New York was a crucial part of the gay community's development, and the details are charted truthfully here.