Ground Zero

by Andrew Holleran

Essays discuss AIDS, the homosexual community, snobbery, sickroom visits, apartments, friendships, Henry James, the theater, promiscuity, celibacy, beauty, and trust

Genres: LGBT, Nonfiction, Essays, Queer, Gay, New York

1 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Born in 1943. Andrew Holleran is the pseudonym of Eric Garber, a novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is a prominent novelist of post-Stonewall gay literature. He was a member of The Violet Quill, a gay writer's group that met briefly from 1980-81.

Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cross-posted at Shelf Inflicted and at Outlaw Reviews

“Life’s a movie people leave at different times; the ones who remain get to see a little more of what happens next.”

I thought that 23 years after my friend Mark’s death from AIDS I would finally be able to read a book about the disease and those who perished without shedding a tear. It turns out I was wrong. As Anthony Rapp says in his brilliant memoir, Without You, “Grief does not expire like a candle or the beacon on a lighthouse. It simply changes temperature.” My tears didn’t flow like they did in those late days of Mark’s illness and subsequent stay in a hospice. The place was so homey and comforting, decorated with artwork and handcrafts, each room private, the staff and volunteers warm and caring, that for just a moment I was able to forget it was a place where men went to die. They just hung there in the corners of my eyelids, refusing to drop.

This is a collection 23 essays written during the height of the AIDS epidemic, also referred to as a plague.

“It is easy to be angry with God, or the virus, or the general arrangement of the universe in which a microbe takes man from the summit, the apex, of mammalian life to the nadir of bacterial existence, which changes him from a paragon a little lower than the angels to the doormat of every germ that comes through the door; nature’s punching bag.”

Holleran did a superb job portraying the fear and anxiety of the times and I enjoyed the vivid descriptions of New York and its colorful, gay inhabitants. He writes of the importance of friendships, the joy and freedom that comes with loving who you chose, the destruction of lives, the desperate search for cures, the grief of survivors, and the changes within the gay community.

“Nothing is so difficult for the human mind to accept as the fact that much suffering in life is random, meaningless, and in a sense completely trivial: the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Though Holleran is eminently quotable, I found his writing style lush and rambly at times. The long sentences and descriptive passages definitely suited these stories, however. They felt intimate, personal, poignant, and suffused with love for what was and hope for a brighter future.

“And because, most curious of all, most odd, most marvelous, the truth is none of them is really chilled by the assertion – each of them thinks he will escape, I suspect. As Freud also said, “No one really believes in his own death.”"

There were two essays about literary authors I have not read that felt out of place in this book (Henry James and Santayana), and were quite frankly, a little long and boring. The other essays are a treasure and grim reminder that we must carry on and enjoy what life has to offer.

“The fact that people die does not mean we stop talking to them. It may mean we start talking to them. Especially when the people who have been left behind feel guilty about the fact; baffled by the accident of their own survival.”

THE AIDS MEMORIAL

[Shay Gabriel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful, haunting essays from the battlefield of NYC's gay community in the early-mid 1980s. They are essays about AIDS, yes, but also about the nature of community and love - about the meaning of sex faced with death - and about humanity in times of trial. Holleran's writing is no less effective for its superb craftsmanship.

[Ronald Wilcox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent collection of essays about life in the mid-1980's by a gay man who lived in New York and Florida. Holleran vividly paints the picture of loss and fear engendered by the AIDS epidemic. In many ways, in both HIV care and gay rights, we have come great strides, but surprisingly the essays still resonate.

[Robert Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still reading...got side-tracked by this while reading 'before night falls', so far powerful & heart-breaking, especially for someone like me who lived through that time. i hate to say i have survivor's guilt, but it may be true. more later.

[Mia]

"Little did we dream, nights at the Saint, when sweat was licked off dancers' bodies and kisses were exchanged, that years later we would refuse to drink from the water fountain there."

"It still seems a scandal that an item scientists do not even define as living- a microbe that can't paint angels, trumpets, clouds, or gods upon a ceiling- can devour a creature who can. It still seems a reproach that a virus can return us from the twentieth century to the Stone Age."

"And part of what I was feeling was terror- since each time a friend dies of this thing, your own hunch that you will escape seems less and less rational."

"Looking at some of the guests I can tell which are celibate; which are having little, more cautious sex; and which ones are going right on with the old ways. It has nothing to do with one's degree of personal exposure to the dying; it has to do with temperament, with the way different minds respond to the same fact."

"(Gay life without sex is a theme park)."

"I looked at the man in the first row with the button-down shirt, as if at an eclair on the bakery shelf, and thought, 'Someday, when this is over, perhaps I can have just...one...more...of those.'"

"The men- who used to be hors d'oeuvres- are no longer edible."

"I unbuttoned his shirt and ran my hands over his body; he turned away moments later and ejaculated into the air; zipped up, walked off, and disappeared from the park-without saying a word. All the way home the city seemed pervaded by silence."

"'The skin', he explained in a cab going north, 'needs to be touched'."

[Jaykumar B · Rating 4 out of 5]

the function of people who are a part of a catastrophic event, be it a plague, or some natural disaster or even man-made, is to be bear witness, to work for humanity, and most importantly to live... Holleran has captured the essence of an era that is long gone, stored now only in forms of memories, and books, films, pictures, and more, and he has also revealed the ushering of another epoch, the one marred by the death, sickness, enforced isolation, fear, loneliness, anger, indifference, and maturity... here is a series of essays that illustrate that with AIDS an generation grew up, rather quickly (?) or too late (!), however, here one simply sees a world as it had once been, and feel as if 'a terrible beauty is born'...

[Rene]

I see why a handful of these essays were excluded from Chronicle of a Plague, Revisited. I recommend Holleran’s essay collection Chronicles of a Plague, Revisited over this one. It has the best essays and a few new ones as well

[Bennett]

Alternate title: Sex and the City and the Apocalypse.

[Tuomas Aitonurmi]

Walter de Camp on suomentanut kuusi esseetä Andrew Holleranin vuonna 1988 julkaistusta Ground Zero -esseekokoelmasta valikoimaansa Tuhon ytimessä (Odessa 1993). Viisi teksteistä käsittelee aidsin iskeytymistä New Yorkin homoyhteisöön 1980-luvulla, viimeisen aiheena on ”Hyvä seksi / huono seksi”, jossa vasta loppukaneetti peilautuu sairauden vaikutuksiin.

Holleranille, kuten monille muille New Yorkissa silloin eläneille homoille, 1970-luku oli vapautumisen riemua: Fire Islandin päättymättömiä bileitä, täysiä baareja ja pidäkkeetöntä seksiä. Hän on tallentanut aikakauden tunnelman kulttiklassikoksi kohonneeseen romaaniinsa Dancer from the Dance (jota olen lukenut vähitellen eteenpäin jo pienen ikuisuuden, ja teos on jäänyt toistuvasti kesken, vahvimmillaan se on tosiaan ajankuvauksena). Vaikeimpana romaanissa näyttäytyy pysyvän rakkauden etsintä.

80-luvun alkaessa Holleran jätti New Yorkin juuri ennen suurta tuhoa. Esseessä ”Snobit lainehilla” on pysäyttävän voimakas kuvaus kuumasta iltapäivästä, jolloin Holleran istui ystävänsä kanssa Fire Islandin uimarannalla, mutta se oli suljettu likaviemärien jätteiden ajauduttua liian lähelle maata: ”Kaikkialla ympärillämme miesryhmät paahtoivat itseään auringossa, vierellään valtameri johon he eivät voineet astua.” Toisaalla esseissä Holleran kuvaa, millaista seksistä oli tullut aidsin keskellä: masturbointia pornoteattereissa niin, ettei toiseen uskaltanut edes koskea kunnolla, ja spermaan suhtauduttiin kuin radioaktiiviseen aineeseen. Tällä oli pitkäkestoiset vaikutuksensa tietyn sukupolven homomiehiin, mikä tulee esiin myös tämän vuoden suosikkielokuvassa All of Us Strangers, jossa kahdesta miehestä vanhempi kertoo nuoruuden peloistaan yhdyntää kohtaan.

Teksteistä painuvat mieleen erityisesti toistuvat käynnit sairaalassa, puhelinsoitot ystävien kuolemista ja se, miten epidemian koskettamat yhteisöt alkoivat auttaa toisiaan. ”Syvällisin ero ihmisten välillä saattaa hyvinkin olla ero sairaiden ja terveiden välillä, mutta myötätuntoiset ihmiset yrittävät kurottautua kuilun ylitse ja rakentaa siihen siltaa.” Yhteistä vihollista vastaan kamppailu yhdisti jälleen yksilöt, jotka sitä ennen tunsivat toisensa kenties vain ohitettuina kasvoina ”diskoteekeissa”.

Ohuen valikoiman ilmestymisen suomeksi mahdollisti Kari Lempisen (Walter de Camp) ja Jukka Lindforsin perustama pieni Odessa-kustantamo, jonka viimeisiä julkaisuja se näyttäisi olleen. 90-lukulaisessa Suomessa tällainen teos on ollut todellinen kuriositeetti. Itse poimin tämän pari vuotta sitten kirjaston ”ota ilmaiseksi”-poistopöydältä. Esseiden ajankuvaus on palaamisen arvoista myös nykypäivänä, sillä ne näyttävät, millainen tie on vähemmistöjen historiassa kuljettu. Paikoin Holleranin tavassa ajatella ja kuvata asioita on jotain ärsyttävän pinnallista, mutta monet hänen mietteensä ovat tarkkanäköisiä – ja pisteliään huumorin värittämiä. Tuhon ytimessä sanoittaa niin surun, kamppailun kuin elämän.

“Mieleeni jäi tunne, että olin elossa.”

[Vanessa (V.C.) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of essays is heartbreaking, yes, but also incredibly honest in its commentary on not only the AIDS epidemic, but on cruising, dating, hooking up, and living life in the city in all its drama and glory in a time where every waking moment mattered. Definitely a highlight in 1980's gay/AIDS fiction.

[Puppet · Rating 3 out of 5]

while the quality of the essays vary, overall it finds a place of joy through the sadness. honest. grounding.