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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (July 1, 1988)
The post-AIDS era begins Valley of the Shadow and The Darker Proof B Y J O E L R E D O N Valley o f the Shadow. by Christopher Davis (St. Martin’s, $13.95). The Darker Proof: Stories from a Crisis, by Adam Mars-Jones and Edmund White (Plume, $7.95). y impression of Christopher Davis’s first novel was that Davis was trying to imitate the style of Ernest Hemingway, mainly by using run-on sentences and the word and to connect sentences instead of ending them with a period. “ The old man’’ in his first novel (Joseph and the Old Man) seemed like a cliched Hemingway type. Reading that book made me angry and I never finished it. In the first paragraph of his new novel. Valley o f the Shadow, Davis writes: “ I was afraid of the water when I was young and small and I remember my father taking me out into it and holding me under my stomach and then letting me go.” In the jacket blurb Malcolm Boyd observes: “ In 1929 Ernest Hemingway wrote A Farewell to Arms. . . . ” He goes on to say that in 1988 Davis wrote Valley of the Shadow. Obviously I’m not the only person who sees the connection. But to actually compare Davis with Hemingway ought to be illegal, Hemingway was a great writer, maybe the best, and Davis is not, he may not even be “ good.” At best Davis knows enough about Hemingway to try to imitate him, but it comes out pretentious and put-on. The book does get better, however, once the narrator relaxes more into his material. Valley o f the Shadow starts off with the narrator’s memories about masturbation (which may interest some people but doesn’t me) and then goes into light pom — penises become dicks. Then it’s Fire Island (“ and he was so handsome” ) and promiscuity. Finally, the long hot sexual relationship with Ted (who eventu ally dies of AIDS). At one point the narrator, while describing an evening with a trick and what they did in bed, stops himself and says: . . but prudence and a desire to preserve some privacy even when I am no longer living, when this will be read, prevent me from being more specific.” How about: Who Cares? In the narrator's world everyone who matters is male, muscular, witty and attractive — yet the narrator claims to scorn “ gay culture.” Because he hates it but boasts of his own sexual exploits. I’m not inclined to feel sympathetic, while at the same time the narrator is so busy pointing fingers at everyone else’s promiscuities and shallow nesses. Valley o f the Shadow, however, does catch the flavor of New York in the early ’80s and for that it will be read and remembered. It doesn’t necessarily take a person with AIDS to write convincingly about having AIDS. For example, two years ago M. E. Kerr, a writer of novels for young adults, wrote a book called Night Kites in which a younger brother confronts his older gay brother’s struggle with the disease. Kerr’s characteriza tions were simple but unquestionably authentic. I don’t know whether Adam Mars-Jones has AIDS or not, or whether Edmund White does either, for that matter — but this fact never occurs to me as it has when I’ve read other AIDS fiction. The two authors of this collection of stories are top-notch — they’d make me believe anything. What they write is literature. The Darker Proof is a book that tells us about ourselves. If you want good, perceptive short stories about people dealing with AIDS, look no further. Even though the Mars-Jones stories occur in Britain, nothing in the experience of being or knowing someone with AIDS is left out. One character, losing his courage while having a relationship with an HIV-positive partner (one who becomes gradually more sick), thinks nostalgically “ of the time when people had got so exercised about who loved who, and how much. Now it was simply a question of what character of love would be demanded of him, and how soon.” A narrator in the story “ Remission” says, “ Health for me is more than being not-yet-dead. It’s not something you patrol; it’s something you must forget to patrol or it’s not any sort of health at all.” Mars-Jones’ work is a little more brooding than White’s, but this perhaps is only because his characters suffer more physically and are not always in longer-term relationships. In White’s “ Palace Days,” two expatriate lovers from America go to Paris (“ And just as Europeans had once gone to America in search of sex, in the same spirit he’d come to the New World.” ) But the lovers eventually realize that AIDS has so changed the face of their society that the only home which exists for them is their relationship together. The Darker Proof is a book that left me immensely satisfied. • For a taste of Spain Tapas • Espresso • Desserts Beer • Wine \y. V. .\ Wednesdays: The best Paella in town! JU ^E e P jJEEeiHG- C ^l 123! SW Jefferson MOM-SAT. 11 am -11 pm 294-0218 ■- In Downtown Vancouver 4 ¡M m 3 (Across 1-5 Bridge, Citv Center Exit, Minutes from Downtown Portland) ■ 2112 N.W. Kearney >221-1195 - • - > * v V *'*- ■ : A • '•;> ■ vii, '< .. 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