With Where the Rainbow Ends, acclaimed short story writer and journalist Jameson Currier has written more than another AIDS novel. "Packed with the stuff of life, this rewarding work might be termed a 'gay immigrant' novel, a saga about men and women who leave their hometown and families, move to the big cities, and fashion new lives in an alien land" (Library Journal).
At the center of this epic tale is Robbie Taylor, who settles in New York City in 1978 as an optimistic, romantic young man with a circle of new friends. This powerful and passionate story of the trials and loves of a gay Everyman takes Robbie through a personal odyssey into enlightenment, spanning a period of almost fifteen years. As he navigates through the hedonism of his heady youth in Manhattan searching for faith, family, and understanding, Robbie is constantly being tested, like a modern-day Job. Currier masterfully weaves an ardent story about the families that we create for ourselves, a story that is at once lyrical, poignant, and sexy.
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Modern gay history?the mores and etiquette of dating, sex, coupledom and love from the late 1970s to the present?is covered in this compelling, heartfelt first novel from Currier (Dancing on the Moon: Short Stories About AIDS). Robbie Taylor, 19 and gay, arrives in New York City in 1978. Dazzled by his new cultural and sexual opportunities, Robbie, in his explorations of Manhattan and Fire Island, nevertheless longs for a permanent relationship?"two men bonded by a passion and fidelity and trust for one another." Robbie finds much of what he is looking for in Nathan Solloway, and the two men establish a close circle of friends and a home together just as the grim death toll of the AIDS pandemic begins. Robbie is a long-winded narrator, and Currier would have done well to replace some of the novel's exposition with pithy dialogue and pointed anecdotes. In addition, the recurring rainbow motif is forced. Nevertheless, Currier tells a moving tale in which, in the face of devastating losses, Robbie and his "stitched-together" family, now in Los Angeles, are able to emerge from grief strengthened by the stories they carry. Currier has created a powerful monument honoring a generation of gay men lost to AIDS and their wounded, resilient survivors. Author tour. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Robbie Taylor, 20 in 1978, is a gay refugee from a small southern town and his strict, religious father. His tale of adventure in New York, of finding himself and building a life, proves to be more than a coming-of-age novel, as it spans the crucial decade and a half when AIDS first became known and then proceeded to wreak havoc. Robbie romantically yearns for love but dances 'til dawn, does poppers, and sleeps around during the hedonistic late '70s. Surely readers know that his will be a short-lived idyll. After less than five years and 150 pages, he reads the first accounts of a "gay cancer," and the book turns inexorably into an account of friends sickening and dying and of the struggle that came to define so many lives. "Ya gotta have friends" becomes the novel's theme, and it resonates, thanks to Currier's smoothly flowing, emotionally charged writing, evoking a time now sufficiently far past to elicit a kind of nostalgia. This is strong work on a powerful subject. Whitney Scott
Jameson Currier is the author of three novels: Where the Rainbow Ends, nominated for a Lambda Literary award, The Wolf at the Door, and The Third Buddha; and four collections of short fiction: Dancing on the Moon; Desire, Lust, Passion, Sex; Still Dancing: New and Selected Stories; and The Haunted Heart and Other Tales, which was awarded a Black Quill Award for Best Dark Genre Fiction Collection. His short fiction has appeared in many literary magazines and Web sites, including OutsiderInk, Velvet Mafia, Blithe House Quarterly, Absinthe Literary Review, Confrontation, Rainbow Curve, Christopher Street, Harrington Gay Men's Fiction Quarterly, and the anthologies Men on Men 5, Best American Gay Fiction 3, Certain Voices, Boyfriends from Hell, Men Seeking Men, Mammoth Book of New Gay Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best American Erotica, Best Gay Romance, Best Gay Stories, Circa 2000, Rebel Yell, I Do/I Don't, Where the Boys Are, Nine Hundred & Sixty-Nine, Wilde Stories, Unspeakable Horror, Art from Art, and Making Literature Matter. His AIDS-themed short stories have also been translated into French by Anne-Laure Hubert and published as Les Fantômes. His reviews, essays, interviews, and articles on AIDS and gay culture have been published in many national and local publications, including The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Newsday, The Dallas Morning News, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine, Lambda Book Report, The Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review, Dallas Voice, The Washington Blade, Southern Voice, Metrosource, Bay Area Reporter, Frontiers, Ten Percent, The New York Native, The New York Blade, Out, and Body Positive. Since 2002 he has compiled a monthly digest of LGBT publishing notes which can be currently found on his blog Queertype. In 2010 he founded Chelsea Station Editions, an independent press devoted to gay literature. Among the authors the press has published in its first year are debut writers Craig Moreau and David Pratt, and veterans Felice Picano, Walter Holland, and Jon Marans. In November 2011 Currier also launched a new gay literary magazine, Chelsea Station. Currier is the recipient of writing grants from the Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation and The New York Foundation for the Arts, and in 2011 he was inducted into Saints and Sinners Hall of Fame in New Orleans. He currently resides in Manhattan.
3.0 out of 5 starsEnough, already!, September 22, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Where the Rainbow Ends (Hardcover)
Well written, characters nicely fleshed-out. But dark. Very, very dark. Not a shred of humor or levity anywhere. Ne relief from the suffering of all the characters. Another story of lives rent and ravaged by AIDS and other cruel twists of fate. How many of these can we read? For those who have not experienced "the life," this is, however, an excellent keyhole through which to view it. But I imagine there are few "uninitiates" who will read, much less purchse, such a novel. I fear it's more "preaching to the choir." Currier's style is engaging, but the protagonist is so mired in self-pity that it becomes difficult to empathize after a point. Perhaps writing this was cathartic for Currier, and perhaps his next offering will be more satisfying, because he IS a great writer. Check it out from a library because it's unlikely you'll want a second read.
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This review is from: Where the Rainbow Ends (Hardcover)
I loved this book! epic and breathtaking in scope with an easy relaxed, fluent style; this book takes you on an incredible "gay odyssey" I have never read a novel that so effectively encompasses all aspects of gay life and sensibilities. Sexy, romantic, sad and melancholy; this book takes us on a wonderful journey as we navigate the highs and lows of Robbie, a young gay "everyman". Through his eyes we witness the sexy hedonism of the Manhattan gay scene in the late 70's, the AIDS ravaged Reagan years of the early to mid 80's and the 90's AIDS activism of LA. Effectively incorporating historical fact with fiction, Currier has painted a fascinating portrait of Robbie and his four friends; their loves, losses, achievements and disappointments. Thematically there are many, many important issues relating to gay life and the homosexual identity being addressed here: questions of faith, religion, and spirituality and whether these can apply to a modern gay man. The importance of family; Currier raises the essential question, What constitutes a family? Is family by blood or is true family friendship? Issues regarding contemporary sexual politics are also discussed particularly the politics of AIDS activism and the attitudes that big business and government had towards the disease in the late 80's and early 90's. This is a beautiful, eloquent, sexy and at times a disturbing chronicle of the ravages of AIDS and the impact that the disease has had on a whole generation od gay men. Currier gives us an uncanny insight in to the mind of Robbie never compromising the gritty realism, this novel tells it like it is. I would recommend this novel as essential reading not just for every gay men but for anyone who has ever has been touched by AIDS or who has had to struggle against adversity.
Michael Leonard
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If universities ever begin studies on the early days of the AIDS pandemic in America, "Where The Rainbow Ends" should be considered a must-read. Eloquent, passionate, full of heart: this book is a seminal masterpiece.
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