Queer and Loathing: Rants and Raves of a Raging AIDS Clone [Paperback]

David B. Feinberg (Author), Tony Kushner (Preface)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1995

"This is as close to the truth as I can get, " writes David B. Feinberg in this stunning nonfiction debut - a collection of autobiographical essays, gonzo journalism, and demented Feinbergian lists about AIDS activism and living, writing, and dying with AIDS. With the startling blend of satiric wit and pathos, black humor and heroism, found in his widely acclaimed and iconoclastic novels, he charts a harrowing personal journey down that "HIV highway to hell."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Novelist Feinberg (Eighty-Sixed) brings together an unsettling but frequently affecting collection of autobiographical essays and miscellaneous pieces (originally published in the Advocate, Details and other publications) about living with AIDS. Sometimes Feinberg's attempts at black humor merely confirm Edmund White's contention that joking about AIDS is to attempt in vain to domesticate it; an essay on etiquette for the HIV-positive begins, "Avoid bleeding in public." Less facile are the more autobiographical pieces, complex blends of rage, despair and wit. Of his relationship with a friend who is HIV-negative, Feinberg writes, "Sometims I feel like damaged goods. He has a fifty-year warrantee, and I'm stuck with a failed inspection slip in my shirt pocket."
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The author of the autobiographical novels Eighty-Sixed (LJ 11/1/88) and Spontaneous Combustion (LJ 10/1/91) offers 36 essays dating from 1989 to 1994, some of which have been delivered as talks and/or appeared in such gay publications as Gay Community News, QW, Out, and the Advocate. Feinberg writes, "I would probably literally go mad if I tried to deal with AIDS at face value, without the filter of humor." His anger and impatience with hypocrisy and ignorance is palpable as he tears with biting sarcasm, bitter irony, and bitchy insight into issues of love, friendship, ACT-UP demonstrations, doctors, death, drugs, and T-cells in essays such as "Memorials from Hell," "Etiquette for the HIV-Antibody Positive," and "How To Make a Will." Vibrant and caustic, this "Eighties gonzo journalism" from a New York, Jewish, HIV-positive gay perspective is a devas- tatingly powerful personal statement.
James E. Van Buskirk, San Francisco P.L.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (November 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140240802
• ISBN-13: 978-0140240801
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,699,227 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brutal humor in the face of AIDS, September 2, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Queer and Loathing: Rants and Raves of a Raging AIDS Clone (Paperback)

It has become almost a cliche. Whenever a book or movie contains humor that is any edgier than standard, mushy fare, critics rush to say the piece's humor is "savage" or "brutal." This book, however, redefines what it means to use brutal satire and mockery. David Feinberg rips into the systems in society that allow people to die without hope or dignity, in the process creating a highly-charged history text of the fight against AIDS as the 1980s gave way to the '90s.

Feinberg is at his best in his shorter pieces. Although the opening essay, a description of the ACT-UP takeover of Federal Drug Administration offices, has power, it is not as punchy as his later, shorter essays and lists. However, he takes no prisoners in his opening, showing exactly how disorganized and catch-as-catch-can ACT-UP meetings were, in addition to castigating the FDA and other institutions that inflated drug prices to unattainable levels.

Some of the highlights of the rest of the book are "Sex Tips for Boys," "Miss Letitia Thing's Excruciatingly Correct Guide to Etiquette for the Dying," and "Regrets." Feinberg also creates list-essays of tremendous power, like "100 Ways You Can Fight the AIDS Crisis," which includes 10 suggestions for how to eradicate Jesse Helms.

Targets, including gays who deny the gravity of the crisis ("Nam-Yo-Ho-Renge-Kyo"), politicians who ignore the dying ("100 Ways You Can Fight the AIDS Crisis"), and insensitive, product-pushing companies ("Lifestyles Urns"), are shredded with unerring accuracy and equal force. There are no sacred cows in this work. There are no areas of the crisis which don't get a critical overview from Feinberg. His final words in the book, sarcastically thanking the various companies, politicians, individuals, and institutions that contributed and still contribute to the dying, are devastating in their emotional force. The reader is constantly aware that Feinberg is about to die, and his ability to create black humor is amazing.

As he says in one essay, "You can't wear a red ribbon when you're dead." This book is Feinberg's legacy, one of only a very few books that should be required reading on the AIDS epidemic.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the real thing, June 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Queer and Loathing: Rants and Raves of a Raging AIDS Clone (Paperback)

Feinberg says in this book that he wants to reach age 40 and write 5 books. It's our great loss that he didn't get to do either but at least we have 2 novels and this. I'd say that if you're going to read anything that's real about AIDS, read this.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny Tragedy, December 16, 2008

By 

M. Holley "radiantbirdlives" (Negrokota) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Queer and Loathing: Rants and Raves of a Raging AIDS Clone (Paperback)

I can't believe he made such a funny book about a heartbreaking subject. I am in shock that this even happened. If only I could have one more book from him. However, it is too damn late. I can not believe I am wanting to cry and laugh at the same time.