Monopolies Of Loss Author:Adam Mars-Jones The tragedy of the AIDS epidemic becomes the central theme of a collection of stories that explores the effects of the disease on the victims and on the people around them. — In stories that unfold quietly, with familiarity and domesticity, he assembles a remarkable cast of characters - all of whom are dealing, either peripherally or explicitly, ... more »with the central disease of our time. Mars-Jones conveys the horrors of life during the plague through subversive fiction that aims to destroy the truly unconscionable notion of gay life as alien or other.
Here are people - patients, lovers, even strangers - whom we recognize as our own, as family and friends.
'Slim' is a portrait of a volunteer 'buddy'- young, healthy, simple - as seen by the wracked man he accompanies. In 'An Executor' we hear the ruminations of a man appointed to remove suspicious garments from a dying friend's closet, lest his grieving parents be shocked.
In 'Summer Lightning,' a bittersweet story of an unexpected death that comes while two friends sunbathe at the beach. An everyday accident that shatters a couple's carefully suspended brooding on mortality. A man's tape-recorded thoughts, in his last days, about the pleasures of his lovers, the advice of the hospital, and the slow dream-time he has fallen into: 'Imagination is the last thing to fail me.'.
Each of these stories possesses its own startling force; their combined impact in this collection is staggering. As The Guardian has written, 'Adam Mars-Jones is the Wilfrid Owen of the new long-drawn and deadly trench warfare . . . He describes and exemplifies courage, tenderness and defiance.'.« less