In the Shadow of the American Dream: The Diaries of David Wojnarowicz [Hardcover]

David Wojnarowicz (Author), Amy Scholder (Author, Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1998

Few artists have captured the emotional, sexual, and political chaos of modern urban life as perceptively as David Wojnarowicz, whom Out magazine has called "an acute observer of the unmapped region surrounding his heart and one of the best writers of his generation." In journal entries from age seventeen until his AIDS-related death at thirty-seven, In the Shadow of the American Dream chronicles the life of a radical artist who unequivocally defied bigotry even as he became a target for the right wing. It tells the story of Wojnarowicz's creative birth, from publishing his first photographs and writing what would become The Waterfront Journals to completing his tour de force, Close to the Knives, at the height of his fame. In the Shadow of the American Dream is finally a record of the private Wojnarowicz, falling in love, exploring erotic possibilities on the Hudson River piers, becoming overwhelmed by the demands of survival, and searching for the pleasure and freedom he believed one could live on.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

At the time of his death in 1992, David Wojnarowicz was one of the most vital and important names in the New York arts scene. His openness about his HIV status and engagement in public debates about health care and AIDS policy placed his highly political and determinedly provocative art and writing in a new context. In the Shadow of the American Dream is a collection of journal entries from 1971 (when he was 17) to his death. As he alternates between living on New York's Lower East Side and hitchhiking around the country, we can see the evolution of the artist not only as a young man beginning to understand his life and the world but as a social and political critic.

Wojnarowicz's life was difficult--from his unhappy childhood and adolescence to periods of homelessness and ostracism, coupled with overwhelming despair and loneliness. Yet, ultimately, In the Shadow of the American Dream is a joyful book. We see how Wojnarowicz's art became his salvation--even in the face of AIDS--and his life finally opened and expanded to be able to include other people in ways that never happened before, including a close friendship with photographer Peter Hujar. Wojnarowicz also presents us with insightful commentary on the New York arts scene and the enormous effect AIDS had on gay male life and culture. While In the Shadow of the American Dream is a moving, sometimes frightening self-examination of the life of a gay artist, it is also testimony to how mainstream America treats not only its artists but its radicals and visionaries. --Michael Bronski

From Publishers Weekly

These diary entries span 20 years in the life of visual artist, filmmaker, AIDS activist and writer Wojnarowicz (The Waterfront Diaries; Close to the Knives), beginning in the summer of 1971, when the author was 17, and ending in 1991, about a year before he succumbed to AIDS. The first excerpts tend toward longwinded synopses and inarticulate, if touching, descriptions of budding emotions; a teenage camping trip, full of snake catching and angst, reveals a sensitive, thoughtful young man torn between a love of nature and his longing for urban freedom. In his early 20s, Wojnarowicz hitchhikes across the U.S. and also explores France; his travel journals feature wayward ruminations about art, the senses, sexuality and relationships. Somewhat slapdash and Beat-derivative ("damn just sittin' here typetakkin' with two fingers in a flush and rush to get it all down"), these sections nonetheless evoke Wojnarowicz's admiration for social outcasts and a life without restraint: "I always am consumed in this sense that I should be able to move where and when I desire." This wanderlust finds expression in sexuality when Wojnarowicz returns to New York City; his portrayals of gay men and pickups on the West Side piers during this time are certainly passionate, though sometimes repetitive. The diaries become acute, then touching, and then devastating in the '80s, as Wojnarowicz's career as an artist is stabilized. His relationship with photographer Peter Hujar is poignantly rendered. AIDS haunts these years, and Wojnarowicz responds with compassion and anger: he can be memorably literal ("Guy I was kissing says he found out his diagnosis in '88 or something like that and he's relieved he knows I have this disease") or remarkably lyrical ("Should I count backwards like the Mayans so I never get older? Will the moon in the sky listen to my whispers as I count away?"). As in his excellent collection, Close to the Knives, these sad yet unsentimental stories of his own and others' decline are unforgettable.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 267 pages
• Publisher: Grove Pr; 1st edition (October 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802116329
• ISBN-13: 978-0802116321
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,898,669 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The life and times of a gay writer and artist., April 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: In the Shadow of the American Dream: The Diaries of David Wojnarowicz (Hardcover)

These journals of David Worjnarowicz are an account of the famed writer, artist. They begin when he is seveteen years old and end at the time of his death. The beginning explains some of his troubled background: his alcholoic father, his street hustlering in Times Square at a young age, and so on. The entries are most appealing when David speaks about his relationship with other men, especially about his love affair with Jean-Pierre, a man he meet while in Paris. These entries are fluid, full of a joy that one is in touch with when in the throes of love. Eventually David leaves Paris and is back in New York. It is this particular time and place, New York in the late 1970's to early 80's do we see an extreme sexual behavior of many gay men. This is seen not only with this work, but in the photos of Mapplethrope, and many accounts of gay men that have lived in this time period. The other entries concerning his HIV status and all the myriad emotions concerned with the fatal disease are rivetting. The diaries are, at times, disjointed, and some of the early entries I feel really don't need to be within the book. However, the book reveals a man of true in insight, an artist who felt everything, and wrote it all down word for word. A very good book!!!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Required Reading, December 1, 2006

By 

D. Koda "the balladeer" (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In the Shadow of the American Dream: The Diaries of David Wojnarowicz (Hardcover)

Despite the fact that I am already reading 3 other books concurrently, I am revisiting David Wojnarowicz for the umpteenth time. I simply can't stay away. There is no amount of time that can pass where I will have found that I'm still not in love with the man. And not just because I'm queer but because I am truly in love with his heart and the everlasting life of his spirit. No other writer has touched me so deeply or influeneced the reconstruction of my ethics as him. I could only dream of living a life so passionately and generously, a life which is evidenced by this book.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerfully Poetic/Disturbingly Realistic, March 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: In the Shadow of the American Dream: The Diaries of David Wojnarowicz (Hardcover)

Thank you, Amy Scholder (editor and introductionalist). I have just read a review of "In the Shadow of the American Dream" in one of Seattle's weekly newspapers, and I am so glad that I did. Immediately, my curiosity was peaked. Not having ever heard of David Wojnarowicz, I am now a devoted fan of his work. As an artist and a writer, David Wojnarowicz speaks with a rare truthfulness unlike any other writer that I have read in recent times. Wojnarowicz speaks of a world not many people are aware of, the world of "seedy Times Square" where he spent his youth hustling, desperately trying to make a living by selling his body to total strangers; the world of a gay activist, vehemently seeking to make the world a more tolerant place for all; the world of a Person Living with AIDS, conciously, creatively expressing his pain, his hurt and his sadness, but not without hope. "In the Shadow of the American Dream" is a collection of excerpts of the 31 diaries that Wojnarowicz spent his life writing, from the age of 17 until he died of AIDS in 1992. With writing such as "I saw a face in a passing car that looked like someone I once knew. It's like that when you move on to other places in your life--memories of faces fading like thin ice sheets in winter sidewalk puddles, they melt, become only a part of the water so you can't separate them ever again, but they do remain there." Wow! Like passing an automobile accident, you don't want to look (or read) but then you can't put it down. I highly recommend "In the Shadow of the American Dream" to anyone who is slightly interested in what artistry, activism, creativity, and hope really means.