I agree that Faggots was a hot mess, for a whole variety of reasons. It's clear from very early on that Kramer was simply angry that he didn't fit in with "mainstream gay life" of the time in New York. To me, it came across like he always wanted to be "the cool, pretty cheerleader everybody wanted to be around", but he couldn't be that, so he derided everyone instead. 

Thankfully he was a much better activist/hell-raiser then he was a novelist. 

23 hours ago, TetRefine said:

I agree that Faggots was a hot mess, for a whole variety of reasons. It's clear from very early on that Kramer was simply angry that he didn't fit in with "mainstream gay life" of the time in New York. To me, it came across like he always wanted to be "the cool, pretty cheerleader everybody wanted to be around", but he couldn't be that, so he derided everyone instead. 

Thankfully he was a much better activist/hell-raiser then he was a novelist. 

I first read it as a teenager and, though all the sex scenes made a "big" impression on me, I found I couldn't identify with any of the characters and the ending left me so down. It was just as negative as what the homophobes, back then, were telling me gay life would be. I sort-of re-read it for this review (well I skipped through it) and sadly found my memory of it wasn't wrong.

I think Kramer always wanted to be one of the hot gays EVERYONE wanted to shag, and Heaven knows he wasn't.

I also think he was a much better playwriter than he was anything else, he wrote two great plays (to my knowledge, because I haven't read his first one) and two great screenplays, but maybe that was because he HAD to work with other people to have them produced, the final draft wasn't just down to him.

One interesting thing I found out, only just before he died, was that his partner for the second half of his life (long after this book was published) was the man who was the bases of the super gay hunk Dinky Adams, in this book, who the central character didn't end up with.

On 4/4/2022 at 1:59 PM, Drew Payne said:

One interesting thing I found out, only just before he died, was that his partner for the second half of his life (long after this book was published) was the man who was the bases of the super gay hunk Dinky Adams, in this book, who the central character didn't end up with.

Full disclosure:

Apparently Kramer and said partner (David Webster) had originally had a relationship in the 70s, but it ended somewhere before 1978 - and that split is in turn what inspired the book.

They'd get back together in 1991 - and then, in turn, were together for the rest of Kramer's life.

On 4/7/2022 at 2:29 AM, MJ85 said:

Full disclosure:

Apparently Kramer and said partner (David Webster) had originally had a relationship in the 70s, but it ended somewhere before 1978 - and that split is in turn what inspired the book.

They'd get back together in 1991 - and then, in turn, were together for the rest of Kramer's life.

I think the fact that they got back together in 1991 and were together for the rest of Kramer's life is far more interesting then the plot of this book. I wish he had written about that relationship, with the insight he showed in The Normal Heart and The Destiny of Me.

Thanks for the details.

I found this fascinating interview with the said partner, in which he talks all about their life together, both from the 70s when they first met on Fire Island, to their 20+ years together until he died.

https://www.thebody.com/article/interview-with-larry-kramer-husband-david-webster 

9 minutes ago, TetRefine said:

I found this fascinating interview with the said partner, in which he talks all about their life together, both from the 70s when they first met on Fire Island, to their 20+ years together until he died.

 

https://www.thebody.com/article/interview-with-larry-kramer-husband-david-webster 

@TetRefine, YOU'RE A STAR!! Thank you for this, it is fascinating and really helpful.

13 hours ago, heeeeeyashley said:

Good one!

Thank you.