This emotionally charged first novel by a Lebanese-American writer
and artist is an impressionistic collage that skillfully juxtaposes
its gay protagonists' defiant encounters with AIDS, the embattled
recent history of Lebanon during its own civil war and "the Israeli
siege of Beirut," and more general permutations of estrangement
from society, family, and nation. Alameddine's characters (who are,
unfortunately, not always clearly distinguished) include a Lebanese
matriarch whose diary records the sufferings of her kindred
throughout a 30-year span of political turmoil, several variously
involved San Franciscans during that city's own plague years, and -
most crucially - a painter whose garishly violent canvases are
calculated distortions of his Lebanese homeland's chaotic past and
present. The "novel" assembles summaries of that history together
with journal excerpts, letters, poems, discursive statements often
framed as aphorisms ("in America, I fit, but I do not belong. In
Lebanon, I belong, but I do not fit"), and aborted literary works.
If we're occasionally unsure who's speaking (or being addressed),
there's no mistaking the book's furious argumentative energy here -
whether its scattershot wit takes the form of mocking allusions to
the biblical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse; a rudely satirical
playlet whose characters include Eleanor Roosevelt, Krishnamurti,
Julio Cortazar, and (a probably gay) Tom Cruise; imaginary
conversations with eminent writers (Borges, Coover, and Updike
among them); or parodies whose subjects range from Middle Eastern
scriptures to American movies and TV shows (one of The Waltons is
particularly droll). Alameddine stumbles when fulminating nakedly
against American materialism and heterosexual hypocrisy - yet some
of his baldest declarations are among his finer effects (for
example, an HIV-positive protagonist's lament that "nothing in my
life is up to me"). A wildly uneven, but powerful and original
portrayal of cultural and sexual displacement, alienation, and - in
its admirably gritty way - pride. (Kirkus Reviews)
A dazzling literary debut, KOOLAIDS shatters the dimension of time and mimes the chaos of contemporary existence as it details the impact of the AIDS epidemic and the Lebanese civil war on a circle of family and friends.
In clips, quips, memories and hallucinations, tragic news reports and hilarious short plays, diary entries and conversations, KOOLAIDS tells the stories of a group of individuals who can no longer love or think except in fragments of time.
Their dances with death - in wartorn Beirut, with the scourge of AIDS - form a raging affirmation of life.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
