The Tragedy of Today's Gays (Paperback)

~ (Author) "OF COURSE, I HAD HEARD OF FAGGOTS, growing up as I did in San Francisco in the 1970s; it seemed that everyone in town, for..." (more)
Key Phrases: gay people, New York, Lewis Powell, Abraham Lincoln (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

With equal parts eloquence and urgency, common sense and patriotism, Kramer writes a concise history of AIDS and despairs that gays have become a tragic people: A lack of civic and political involvement even when faced with an increasingly powerful and hateful opposition. A sexual abandon so reckless that "we are murdering each other." A growing addiction to crystal-meth that defies logic. But Kramer offers gays a survival plan: "So many of Larry Kramer's messages to the younger generation are humanist messages, so old-fashioned in a callow age that we need Kramer to make them again," writes Naomi Wolf in her foreword. "Honor your dead. Take responsibility for yourselves. Grow up. Your lives have meaning-don't fuck and drug them away."

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Tarcher (April 21, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585424277
• ISBN-13: 978-1585424276
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #751,891 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good Message, Bad Messenger, April 21, 2005

By	Anthony W. Skaggs (New York, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Kramer's latest jeremiad is available for free right on the web, so it's not necessary to spend money to read it, unless one wants to peruse the added bulk of two introductions and one afterword to pad this out as a mini-book. Kramer's essential message is certainly true: gay men need to grow up and stop acting out - it would keep us healthier and more capable of loving. This important message is surrounded by the usual Kramer hyperbole and score-settling against the admittedly odious Ed Koch and others he doesn't like. Like a mantra Kramer tells us that gays are better than other people, whatever that means, while the title of the book certainly doesn't seem to back that up. And by gays, Kramer refers only to gay men. Lesbians already live up to the "love one another" creed he preaches, one assumes. An old testament prophet is better suited to the Evangelicals than to gay life, and while Kramer is I'm sure well-intentioned, his manner and screaming alienates. We need a better messenger.

16 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read This Speech!, May 14, 2005

By	H. F. Corbin "Foster Corbin" (ATLANTA, GA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Since the very earliest days of the AIDS epidemic Larry Kramer has often been the loudest and sometimes it seems almost the only, lonely member of the U. S.'s gay community screaming out against what he perceives as the injustice of the government's handling of the AIDS problem. At 69, he shouts once again. I read his speech twice-- it's short and to the point; sadly he's right about most of what he says. On them: about the cabal or right wing conspiracy-- remember, people laughed at Hillary Clinton for using that term-- Mr. Kramer gives ample evidence that she was right, quoting Bill Moyers and others. The numbers are frightening beyong belief. The top 1 percent of wealth holders control 39 percent of total household wealth in the U. S. The inequality gap in this country is the highest in the industrialized world. Only two percent of the many billions of dollars Congress approved for Africa and around the world has actually left Washington some four years later. "Moral values," if we don't know it, we should, is a code word that means us. That's why Bush was reelected. Conclusion: Those in power are happy to see us die.

About us: Mr. Kramer's words to the gay community are just as harsh. We are still killing ourselves with drugs and having unprotected sex 25 years into the worst epidemic the world has ever known. (At the beginning of his speech he mentions two friends, one in his middle age who has just tested positive for the virus and the other, also in his middle age, who has become addicted to crystal meth. The younger gay people have no heroes to follow and no interest in learning about their history. They (we, or most of us) are unwilling to stand up and fight those in power. That is our tragedy.

Mr. Kramer-- God bless him-- with the fervor of an Old Testament Prophet and taking no prisoners, in his rage is as outrageous as ever. Some of his observations: Ronald Reagan is responsible for more deaths than Hitler. Ed Koch, Mayor of New York City, when the first cases were reported there in 1981, did nothing, according to Kramer, and is one of three persons whose behavior is the reason the AIDS plague was "allowed to happen." He also asks the pertinent question: what would happen if Mary Cheney wanted to teach?" Dr. Anthony Fauci is the only "true AIDS hero" in the entire government. Finally, George Washington was gay.

No less than five times in his speech, Mr. Kramer opines that gay people are better and "smarter and more talented and more aware" than other people. He gives no evidence to support his conclusion. He's wrong on that one. But he is right on another point: "We are human beings as much as they are, and their God is the same as everyone's else's God and He simply cannot be allowed to be as punishing as they are requiring Him to be."

Read this very short but so relevant speech.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars TOO IMPORTANT TO IGNORE, YET TOO FLAWED TO ACCEPT WHOLESALE, August 18, 2005

By	Bill Brent "writer, editor, publisher" (HI and CA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I feel Larry Kramer's pain. Really, I do. I've seroconverted. I'm a recovered crystal meth abuser.

What I don't understand is his insistence (repeatedly!) that gay men are smarter, funnier, and otherwise superhuman compared to the rest of society. He invokes this mantra incessantly, which probably plays better live than in print. (The core of this book is a transcripted speech). In this important yet flawed work, it sounds as if Mr. Kramer is still trying to convince himself that his idealized vision of gaydom is accurate. It isn't. Clearly Kramer is one of gaydom's Ubermenschen, yet the gay mediocrities vastly outnumber the gay heroes, at least in today's gay America.

It's an eons-old belief that if you say something often and vigorously enough, then it will become so. This is at the foundation of magical thinking. At the positive end of the spectrum, we see this reflected in systems like Norman Vincent Peale's "The Power of Positive Thinking." At the other extreme, however, such magical thinking is dangerous and delusional, or at least counterproductive.

I agree with Kramer's assertion that feeding the hungry ghosts of hedonism is eating gay men alive. So be it.

All the wishing and insisting in the world cannot change the fact that thousands if not millions of gay Americans are selfish, ruthless, complacent cows. No amount of tantrum-throwing or consciousness-raising will goad such self-destructive adolescents in adult bodies out of their narcolepsy. Fine, I say.

Let them die off as soon as possible, then, and let us dispose of the bodies with as little fanfare or breast-beating as possible. Meanwhile, let us hasten to make space for the brightest and bravest, and throw our collective weight behind those cultural warriors. Stop wasting precious time and energy trying to convince a pack of losers of the error of their ways. Instead, as Kramer does imply, let's establish more competitions, scholarships, endowments, and other gay institutions designed to foster and reward real achievers.

No amount of wishful thinking or screaming at a spiritually sick and twisted man will get him into recovery until he is willing to take the necessary step of raising his hand, asking for help, and making a real commitment to the ongoing task of change and inner growth.

Evolve or perish. Same as it ever was, same as it will ever be.

So please, Mr. Kramer, stop repeating yourself, especially when you're making sweeping generalizations about gaydom. It sounds like you're praying to a lost god (or, more precisely, the ghosts of Gay Liberation past, may they rest in peace), and that simply doesn't support your case -- or, ultimately, your cause.