The Destiny of Me

by Larry Kramer

Funny, gutsy, and unabashedly emotional, Larry Kramer's The Destiny of Me has the power to hit us where it hurts - in the heart. AIDS activist Ned Weeks, the subject of Kramer's earlier play The Normal Heart, checks himself into an experimental treatment program run by the very doctor that his militant organization has been criticizing most. Frightened of dying from the disease, Ned finds himself fighting to get a little more time among the living - and to figure out his life. Through Kramer's use of daring stagecraft, Ned, from his hospital bed, reenters his childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, talking with the boy he once was and with whom he still hasn't come to terms. Seeing his past through the dual vision of a child's and an adult's eyes becomes a stunning revelatory experience, filled with anger and laughter, understanding and irreconcilable absurdity. All the while Ned, the patient, engages his doctor and nurse in a caustic verbal exchange about AIDS research, treatment, and activism. Stirring theater, as well as provocative, exciting reading, The Destiny of Me is great American drama, and Larry Kramer is an artist with the skill to make words, like scalpels, cut our feelings to the bone.

Genres: Plays, Drama, LGBT, Theatre, Gay, Queer

122 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Larry Kramer (born June 25, 1935) was an American playwright, author, public health advocate and gay rights activist. He was nominated for an Academy Award, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and was twice a recipient of an Obie Award. In response to the AIDS crisis he founded Gay Men's Health Crisis, which became the largest organization of its kind in the world. He wrote The Normal Heart, the first serious artistic examination of the AIDS crisis. He later founded ACT UP, a protest organization widely credited with having changed public health policy and the public's awareness of HIV and AIDS.[1] "There is no question in my mind that Larry helped change medicine in this country. And he helped change it for the better. In American medicine there are two eras. Before Larry and after Larry," said Dr. Anthony Fauci.[1] Kramer lived in New York City and Connecticut.

Reviews

[Morgan M. Page · Rating 3 out of 5]

Self-indulgent, occasionally wrenching, funny, angry. It's no Normal Heart, but this autobiographical sequel is more or less exactly what we expect from the Angry AIDS Man. The Destiny of Me belongs to the tradition of late 20th Century queer New York art immersed in psychoanalysis (as is the main character, a stand-in for Kramer himself) - it all reads a bit on the nose in retrospect. Freud is a bit hard to make not sound cliché at this point. Worth reading if you're a fan of 80s/90s AIDS literature, and as an historical document of one moment in the life of the father of AIDS activism.

[Michelle Miao · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars, rounded up. Heartwrenching and direct, as usual for Kramer - though I liked The Normal Heart a bit better.

I'm so intensely interested in Larry Kramer and the self-loathing, self-acceptance, love and tragedy of his life. The Destiny of Me is a brave piece of writing, all of his vulnerabilities on full display and the characters real people, just by a different name. I don't know what I expected out of this play but the takeaways have made me spiral, even if Kramer didn't mean for his message to be so hopeless. The cold consolation we take. The yearning for and fear of love, and the cruel strikes of the universe as soon as something good happens to us. A lifetime of work that takes on such fragility because its challenges and it being directly from the heart doesn't matter enough. Shitty parents. And, most horrifying to me, the revisionism we inevitably do looking back on our lives because we're so desperate for some measure of comfort.

And I reflect more personally: What do you do when your parents hate you for your sexuality? How do you come to see your father as a person and not the bane of your existence, especially when he has no reason to be cruel to you and his narcissism has no sad backstory? How does one hold on to hope and innocence, as Alexander did for years and years through some combination of naivety and heart? How do we go back and capture that spirit? How do we grow up and keep it? And, million dollar question, how do we make ourselves brave enough to love and be loved?

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though this play and its companion play, The Normal Heart, could both be seen or read without having seen or read the other and still make sense, I personally feel like reading The Destiny of Me has helped me to better see the reasoning for Ned and Ben Weeks' actions in The Normal Heart. In it, Kramer reflects on events in his past, and in that reflecting, he gains understanding of what brought him to the place he was at when the events at the beginning of The Normal Heart went on in his life. He uses that gained understanding to make sense of what happened between the plays and everything that was going on in his life at the time that he was writing this one. It depicts the struggle of coming to terms with your sexuality and how society's lack of concern for AIDs, a disease that seems to only affect gay men, set many people back in that journey of self acceptance. It does so at a level that goes much deeper than the first play, as it looks more closely at how Kramer's brother and parents contributed to that. I only give it four out of five stars because it can sometimes be confusing to follow when there are multiple scenes going on at once when reading it, though I'm sure that problem wouldn't be as prominent in actually seeing the play acted out.

[Theo Chen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this but need to revisit it. Kramer writes does unsparingly, unflinchingly and pulsing with anger rage and ire. It’s hard to look away. I admire how he writes so honestly and lifts from his own life in a way that doesn’t seem unkind or untrue or too much. That’s very wonderful as a writer in the theatre. I don’t know I mean this play is so infused with memory and autobiography, it’s sort of amazing? I need to reread it to really parse how I feel about it’s structure but I did really love the characterization. It’s more tender than The Normal Heart, and it visits the same ideas and topics but there’s I suppose an urgency to the revisit. And I can understand that kind of frustration of repetition.

[A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find the two plays, The Normal Heart and the Destiny of Me, so touching and transparent. Kramer succeeded in representing the struggles of homosexuals at that time, he represented it as a political issue which was very powerful.
I honestly was kind of hoping for this sequel to be anew somehow, but who are we kidding? Homosexuals awfully struggled and there’s no sugarcoating for that.
Great job Larry Kramer great job!

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Rancy Breece · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fierce, funny and worthy successor to “The Normal Heart”.

[Bobby Sullivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as The Normal Heart, but deeply moving. Larry Kramer trying to come to terms with his family and his upbringing, during a time when he's sure he has very little time to live.

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

This brilliant play is powerful, poignant, sad, and witty.

[Belen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely need to revisit it some time in the future but I absolutely loved it. It was so beautiful and I really wish I could have seen it live. I'm curious how this was put on stage

[Alejandro Curchitser · Rating 5 out of 5]

“What do you do when you’re dying from a disease you need not be dying from? What do you do when the only system set up to save you is a pile of shit run by idiots and quacks? What do you do when your own people won’t unite and fight together to save their own lives?”
[.…]
“And the mystery isn’t why they don’t know anything, it’s why they don’t want to know anything. So what does all this say about the usefulness of…anything? Yes, the war is lost. And I’d give anything to get angry again.”

———


ALEXANDER: Mommy—isn't it a good thing... being different?

RENA: We're all different in many ways and alike in many ways and special in some sort of way. What are you trying to tell me?

ALEXANDER: Is it okay for me to... marry a... for instance... colored girl?

NED: Oh, for goodness' sake.

RENA: You know how important it is for Jewish people to marry Jewish people. There are many famous Jews-Jascha Heifetz and Dinah Shore and Albert Einstein and that baseball player your father's so crazy about, Hank Whatshis-name. But we can't name them out loud.

ALEXANDER: Why not?

RENA: If they know who we are, they come after us. That's what Hitler taught us, and Senator McCarthy is teaching us all over again.

ALEXANDER: What if I find a colored girl who's Jewish?

(She puts her hand to his forehead to see if he has a fever.)

(Breaking away.) All I know is I feel different! From as long ago as I remember! You always taught me to be tolerant of everyone. You did mean it, didn't you? I can trust you?

[S. Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a wonderful play, and it can mean a lot to people for many reasons. For me, the technique of mixing the present with past flashbacks, in a way with no definite transitions, makes the reflections of Ned very poignant. It makes me ponder if it is a hallucinative affect of the medication he is taking for treatment, or simply the reflections of a person who believes himself to be so close to dying.
His relationship with his parents is authentic. In life we don't all have happy-go-lucky relations with out parents, and the scenes where Ned is a child so starved for his parent's attention and approval are heart-wrenching. Likewise, the scenes where as an adult he confronts both his parents are things many, especially gay men, have had to do. Ben always loved Ned, and he did it the best way he could. He was the brother that was less vocal and bottled up emotions in a way that didn't always let him understand his brother, Ned. He tries his best. I am so appalled by how psychiatry of that time treated homosexuality. This play is pretty political, but it is less in your face than the Normal Heart (which of course it had to be because it was the 1980s, and people were dying!!!); however, it is nice to see a more personal and intimate side of Ned Weeks, while still feeling the political tones via the dialogue with Dr. Della Vida and Hanniman.

[Milan/zzz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sequel to The Normal Heart which was phenomenal. This one I've read few months ago after The Normal Heart and after watching the film but was lazy enough to write review. I liked it I know that but I have impression that everything I think at the moment is actually my impression of both books along with the film. Combined. And there's no way to separate these three. OK maybe there is but I'll leave that for some imaginary moment in the distant future :) And just as for The Normal Heart, it would be fantastic to see this on the stage!

[Jaykumar B · Rating 5 out of 5]

a work with the power to shake its readers and yet remind us that hope survives when nothing else will...

with scathing comments on family, love, survival and a critique of the perception of psychology and society on homosexuality and AIDS, Kramer's play continues with the journey of Ned Weeks forward and even in retrospect to explain the character and his motivations and decisions and persona to his readers.

[Larry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This play was the follow up to the Normal Heart even though it was written many years later. It is excellent. and I would love to direct both these plays someday on opposite nights.He is such a strong personality-Kramer that people dont always agree with him. He was the founder of the New york Gay mens healtch center. I admire him even though I might not always agree with him.

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the sequel to The Normal Heart. I found it as powerful as its precursor but in a different way. This play focuses on the years after AIDS and Ned Weeks fight to add a few more years to his life by entering an AIDS treatment program run by his perceived enemies while also trying to make sense of the boy he was and the man he became. Powerful stuff.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think it's trying a little too hard to be The Glass Menagerie. Kramer says as much in his introduction. The Normal Heart was autobiographical, too, but the story there was more focused on the present and more compelling because of it.

[Brian McCann · Rating 4 out of 5]

2018:Haven’t revisited this play since 1993. Impressed with its complicated structure.

2023: again impressed with its structure. It’s talky. Really talky. I do remember seeing it at the Lucille Lortel.

[Rick · Rating 2 out of 5]

This play is okay, but it felt heavy with self-pitying and the over-sentimentality of deathbed lessons learned.

[Amanda Fiorani · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I want to stay a little longer"

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Linked to the Normal Heart this book tells the chilling tale of AIDS in the late 1980s, early 1990s

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sooooo far ahead of its predecessor. Much more inspired, mature, and worth while. Gayyyyy!