Rat bohemia
by Sarah Schulman and Sarah Schulman
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Set in contemporary New York City, Rat Bohemia is the story of Rita Mae Weems, a woman from Queens who works as a rat exterminator for the Department of Health's Pest Control Division. As she battles the budget cuts for extermination and streetlights, her best friend, Killer, a career plant-waterer, is busy falling in love with the rakish and enigmatic Troy Ruby.
And David, a writer who is HIV-positive, struggles to be truthful about the AIDS experience even as his family averts their eyes from his day-to-day efforts to stay alive.
Through Rita, David, and Killer, Schulman traces the very particular and very devastating ways that gay people are abandoned by their families - a subject that has not yet found its way into the public discussion about AIDS - and the enormously creative and courageous ways in which gay men and lesbians lead their lives despite this loss.
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Fiction, Lesbians, Family, Literature, Lesbiennes, Romans, nouvelles, Families, New york (n.y.), fiction, Aids (disease), fiction, Fiction, general, Lesbians, fiction, Gay men, fiction, New York Times reviewed, AIDS (Disease), Patients, Family relationshipsPlaces
New York (State), New York, New York (N.Y.)Showing 7 featured editions. View all 7 editions?
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First published in 1995, this award-winning novel, written from the epicentre of the AIDS crisis, is a bold, achingly honest story set in the "rat bohemia" of New York City, whose huddled masses include gay men and lesbians who bond with one another in the wake of loss. Navigating the currents of the city is Rita Mae, a rat exterminator who holds the optimism of all true bohemians-those who stand outside of the prevailing social apparatus. She and her friends seek new ways to be truthful and honest about their lives as others around them avert their glances. Inspired by A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe, Rat Bohemia is an expansive novel about coping with loss and healing the wounds of the past by reinventing oneself in the city.Rat Bohemia won the Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction, and was named one of the "100 Best Gay and Lesbian Novels of All Time" by the Publishing Triangle.Includes a new introduction by the author.
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- Created November 2, 2008
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| July 18, 2024 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
| December 17, 2022 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
| July 20, 2021 | Edited by Jenner | Merge works |
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| November 2, 2008 | Created by ImportBot | Imported from Talis record |