Our Plague: A Film from New York

by James Chapman

299 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Carah Naseem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our Plague: A Film from New York was author James Chapman's first foray into the literary world. It is raw, brash, startling, profane... but most of all it is vulnerable, it is beautiful, it is familiar. The novel is one about the torment of youth, and the bull-headedness of the force that is hedonism. The narrative is tossed about like a hot potato, from one fucked voice to the next, in an esoteric group of young people who make raw, expository films about their lives. This project is spearheaded by Scott, the man about town who holds the camera in the faces of his friends and lovers, stripping them down and using them for art. The art of these East Village urchins is the art of fucking for fun, the beauty of the club, the photograph of the gay boy with a tattoo for a face.
Chapman takes these souls and twists them, giving them guilt in the form of AIDS. He strands them in the deepest ice crevasses of their souls, freezes their senses, blinds their eyes with the whiteness of death...

Is this book strong? No. Is this book going to fly off the shelves? No. But is this book the type of weak that makes you feel, will it make you squirm, wince, laugh? Absolutely.