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Eighty-Sixed
This is the story of two years in the life of B.J. pre-AIDS 1980, when his only mission is to find himself a boyfriend; and in 1986, when a deadly virus pervades his world and attacks his friends and ex-tricks. Combing high-wire wit with genuine emotional resonance, "Eighty-Sixed" explores the pressing matters of life in contemporary maintaining a long-term relationship with a person of suitable gender and appropriate species; staying cool in the face of bad haircuts, appalling sex, and mortal illness; and other issues like life, death, truth, despair, therapy, sex, God, more sex, Jewish guilt, abstinance, phone calls in the middle of the night, safe sex, alchoholics, the meaning of life, and AIDS. Shockingly frank, bitingly satirical, and ultimately moving, "Eighty-Sixed" is a classic in the literature of AIDS.
326 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1988
13 people are currently reading
1219 people want to read
About the author
David B. Feinberg
7 books13 followersDavid Feinberg was a novelist, essayist, and AIDS activist who also worked as a programmer and a linguist.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews
January 8, 2015
"But look how fast it gets dark," says Grandma.
BJ Rosenthal wakes up in the morning and takes a shower. he puts on his boxers. he puts on his pants. he makes some coffee and drinks it. he puts on his socks and shoes. he puts on a shirt. he goes to work. he is a first person you-are-there-now narrator and the amount of mundane details he provides is excruciating. every. little. thing. but it certainly puts you right there.
BJ Rosenthal is a gay man in 1980s New York City. he is shallow and clever and loves sex. he likes to have a good time. he is always on the prowl. he has to deal with a few STDs here and there. he is neurotic and the first half of the book has some intermittently funny lists that describe how a gay man pre-AIDS crisis moves around in gay NYC. he is an endearing fellow but he is not exactly anything special.
I am a queer man who lives in San Francisco. I am shallow and clever and I love sex. I like to have a good time. I am rarely on the prowl these days. I have never had to deal with an STD. I'm neurotic and am often putting together lists of things. my lists aren't funny but they sure are important to me. I suppose I am an endearing fellow but I am not exactly anything special.
so BJ and I have some things in common. I saw that. I still didn't like him all that much despite those commonalities.
later, AIDS comes to New York City.
in the second half of the book, BJ is HIV-negative. he is intensely fearful and paranoid of contracting HIV and changes much of his life due to that fear. he is emotionally strong-armed, I suppose you could call it that, into becoming a caregiver of a former hook-up who is slowly and horribly dying from AIDS. back then, pre-protease inhibitors, people dying from AIDS became different people. BJ spends a lot of time in hospitals and he hates hospitals. he remains shallow and neurotic and continues writing lists, although these lists are now focused on AIDS. he never particularly liked the guy who's dying and having to be a witness to the dying doesn't make BJ like him more. I do give him some credit for helping out though. he does a lot of it, despite not really understanding why he is even doing it. for the most part it is a banal and meaningless experience for him.
in the second half of my life, I have miraculously remained HIV-negative. in 1994, at age 24, I became tired of in-your-face, let's-all-go-to-jail activism and decided to become a volunteer caregiver for people with HIV. eventually I left my downtown job and made this sort of caregiving my profession. I spent a lot of time in hospitals. I sat by the bedsides of people dying slowly and horribly from AIDS, their bodies and then their minds going, transforming into something so different from what they once used to be. after a few years, I couldn't deal with it anymore. it was depressing beyond belief and I couldn't find meaning in all these slow, painful deaths. I bumped myself up into management so that I didn't have to deal with it. I give myself some credit for trying, but not a lot. other people have done so much more.
I guess I "got" BJ. but his weaknesses aggravated me and I didn't like him much. huh, I wonder why.
so the guy finally dies. this should not be considered a spoiler because there's no mystery to it. it's a given. BJ feels shattered but can barely process his own emotions. then he gets a phone call. another person has contracted HIV and now he has a glimpse of what his future will be like. because back then, AIDS killed almost everyone it touched and it touched a lot of people.
the book was often annoying and BJ was often annoying too. I longed for Eighty-Sixed to give me some depth and meaning and genuine compassion, just something to cling to, you know? to make it all matter, somehow. little of that ever appeared. but that lack sure didn't stop me from crying a lot at the end.
"Funny, when I came, it was so light, and before I looked around, it was pitch dark," says you-know-who.
BJ Rosenthal wakes up in the morning and takes a shower. he puts on his boxers. he puts on his pants. he makes some coffee and drinks it. he puts on his socks and shoes. he puts on a shirt. he goes to work. he is a first person you-are-there-now narrator and the amount of mundane details he provides is excruciating. every. little. thing. but it certainly puts you right there.
BJ Rosenthal is a gay man in 1980s New York City. he is shallow and clever and loves sex. he likes to have a good time. he is always on the prowl. he has to deal with a few STDs here and there. he is neurotic and the first half of the book has some intermittently funny lists that describe how a gay man pre-AIDS crisis moves around in gay NYC. he is an endearing fellow but he is not exactly anything special.
I am a queer man who lives in San Francisco. I am shallow and clever and I love sex. I like to have a good time. I am rarely on the prowl these days. I have never had to deal with an STD. I'm neurotic and am often putting together lists of things. my lists aren't funny but they sure are important to me. I suppose I am an endearing fellow but I am not exactly anything special.
so BJ and I have some things in common. I saw that. I still didn't like him all that much despite those commonalities.
later, AIDS comes to New York City.
in the second half of the book, BJ is HIV-negative. he is intensely fearful and paranoid of contracting HIV and changes much of his life due to that fear. he is emotionally strong-armed, I suppose you could call it that, into becoming a caregiver of a former hook-up who is slowly and horribly dying from AIDS. back then, pre-protease inhibitors, people dying from AIDS became different people. BJ spends a lot of time in hospitals and he hates hospitals. he remains shallow and neurotic and continues writing lists, although these lists are now focused on AIDS. he never particularly liked the guy who's dying and having to be a witness to the dying doesn't make BJ like him more. I do give him some credit for helping out though. he does a lot of it, despite not really understanding why he is even doing it. for the most part it is a banal and meaningless experience for him.
in the second half of my life, I have miraculously remained HIV-negative. in 1994, at age 24, I became tired of in-your-face, let's-all-go-to-jail activism and decided to become a volunteer caregiver for people with HIV. eventually I left my downtown job and made this sort of caregiving my profession. I spent a lot of time in hospitals. I sat by the bedsides of people dying slowly and horribly from AIDS, their bodies and then their minds going, transforming into something so different from what they once used to be. after a few years, I couldn't deal with it anymore. it was depressing beyond belief and I couldn't find meaning in all these slow, painful deaths. I bumped myself up into management so that I didn't have to deal with it. I give myself some credit for trying, but not a lot. other people have done so much more.
I guess I "got" BJ. but his weaknesses aggravated me and I didn't like him much. huh, I wonder why.
so the guy finally dies. this should not be considered a spoiler because there's no mystery to it. it's a given. BJ feels shattered but can barely process his own emotions. then he gets a phone call. another person has contracted HIV and now he has a glimpse of what his future will be like. because back then, AIDS killed almost everyone it touched and it touched a lot of people.
the book was often annoying and BJ was often annoying too. I longed for Eighty-Sixed to give me some depth and meaning and genuine compassion, just something to cling to, you know? to make it all matter, somehow. little of that ever appeared. but that lack sure didn't stop me from crying a lot at the end.
"Funny, when I came, it was so light, and before I looked around, it was pitch dark," says you-know-who.
June 29, 2010
When I had my recent physical, HIV testing was offered as an optional addition to the regular hematology panel, so I went ahead and got the test. It was reassuringly negative, but what struck me was the difference between getting tested in 2010 and the first time I was tested back in 1985. Back then, the probability of testing positive was distinctly higher (I was a gay man in my twenties, living across the river from downtown Manhattan, and several of my friends had tested positive). Back then, a positive test was also a death sentence. For the three days before the test result came back I was climbing the walls.
It's hard to remember now just how terrible a time that was. Even though I was negative, several of my friends were not as lucky. Throughout the New York area, young men in their twenties and thirties were dying way before their time, struck down by opportunistic infections nobody had ever heard of; many were isolated and stigmatized, while Reagan could barely bring himself to say the name of the disease that was killing them.
In response to the epidemic, gay writing sprouted a new branch overnight. Reading back over much of what was written at the height of the epidemic is, for the most part, a fairly grim exercise. Most of it is heartbreaking, but not very good. People were understandably angry, frightened and confused, but not always able to channel their feelings into a coherent shape.
There was, however, one magnificent exception. Out of all the chaos and pain, as first his friends, and then he himself, were getting sick and dying, David Feinberg wrote two 'plague diaries' that capture the times perfectly with unflinching honesty. Eighty-Sixed is the first of the pair (the other is Spontaneous Combustion). It's raw, visceral, confused, angry, satirical, and one of the funniest books you will ever read in your life. The second book is just as affecting, and just as funny.
Feinberg was not about to go gently into that good night - throughout both books he rails constantly against the disease that was ravaging his world, as well as at the institutionalized stupidity, hypocrisy and inefficiency that was characteristic of the early response to the disease.
Don't get me wrong. These books are hilarious, but they will break your heart. Feinberg did not live to experience the discovery of the treatments that stopped an AIDS diagnosis from being a death sentence. He did, however, leave behind these two extraordinary books, which are truly the canonical accounts of a particularly dark time. Much of the material written about the epidemic doesn't hold up over time - Feinberg's account is the honorable, unforgettable, exception - one which still holds extraordinary power.
It's hard to remember now just how terrible a time that was. Even though I was negative, several of my friends were not as lucky. Throughout the New York area, young men in their twenties and thirties were dying way before their time, struck down by opportunistic infections nobody had ever heard of; many were isolated and stigmatized, while Reagan could barely bring himself to say the name of the disease that was killing them.
In response to the epidemic, gay writing sprouted a new branch overnight. Reading back over much of what was written at the height of the epidemic is, for the most part, a fairly grim exercise. Most of it is heartbreaking, but not very good. People were understandably angry, frightened and confused, but not always able to channel their feelings into a coherent shape.
There was, however, one magnificent exception. Out of all the chaos and pain, as first his friends, and then he himself, were getting sick and dying, David Feinberg wrote two 'plague diaries' that capture the times perfectly with unflinching honesty. Eighty-Sixed is the first of the pair (the other is Spontaneous Combustion). It's raw, visceral, confused, angry, satirical, and one of the funniest books you will ever read in your life. The second book is just as affecting, and just as funny.
Feinberg was not about to go gently into that good night - throughout both books he rails constantly against the disease that was ravaging his world, as well as at the institutionalized stupidity, hypocrisy and inefficiency that was characteristic of the early response to the disease.
Don't get me wrong. These books are hilarious, but they will break your heart. Feinberg did not live to experience the discovery of the treatments that stopped an AIDS diagnosis from being a death sentence. He did, however, leave behind these two extraordinary books, which are truly the canonical accounts of a particularly dark time. Much of the material written about the epidemic doesn't hold up over time - Feinberg's account is the honorable, unforgettable, exception - one which still holds extraordinary power.
September 26, 2007
This rocked my world way back when I read it (early 90s). Living in Britain I creepily wondered what it was like in the eye of the aids hurricane and this was what I found. It's funny and sad and funny and terrifying and funny and outrageous and funny and impolite and funny and frightening and funny and - you get the picture. When you read this, you have to go on to Spontaneous Combustion, the follow up. After that he wrote a few essays and after that he died.
February 1, 2022
Dark bitter humour at its best. Funny, sad, tragic, irreverent, blistering, trenchant, topical and timeless. Perhaps the best novel written about the 1980s AIDs epidemic in America.
If you can laugh at hardship, adversity, and impending doom, then you might be a gay man who survived the early plague years and had to laugh sometimes— because you reach a point where laughing and crying are not so very different, and if you have to do something you might as well laugh.
Some people don't like the tone of this book, but when someone asks, What was it like to live during the 1980s plague years? —I direct them to this book. This is what it was like, for many people. Exactly what it was like, if you had a sense of humour.
If you can laugh at hardship, adversity, and impending doom, then you might be a gay man who survived the early plague years and had to laugh sometimes— because you reach a point where laughing and crying are not so very different, and if you have to do something you might as well laugh.
Some people don't like the tone of this book, but when someone asks, What was it like to live during the 1980s plague years? —I direct them to this book. This is what it was like, for many people. Exactly what it was like, if you had a sense of humour.
March 14, 2009
Here's the one-line review that appeared in the first issue of my zine Holy Titclamps in May 1989: "If you can afford it, get this book. Gallows humor. AIDS and the 80's. Just plain essential."
David Feinberg should be canonical for angry queers, just as David Wojnarowicz is, but seems to have somehow seems to have slipped through the cracks. Is it because he's more middle-class? Or just that he alienated too many people at the end, and those who survived don't talk up his legacy?
Feinberg burned briefly and brightly. I recommend him.
David Feinberg should be canonical for angry queers, just as David Wojnarowicz is, but seems to have somehow seems to have slipped through the cracks. Is it because he's more middle-class? Or just that he alienated too many people at the end, and those who survived don't talk up his legacy?
Feinberg burned briefly and brightly. I recommend him.
May 28, 2019
Eighty-sixed is a two-part novel set in 1980s New York City. In 1980, B.J. Rosenthal (the protagonist and narrator) is a young gay man searching for a boyfriend and looking for meaning in life. In 1986, B.J. grapples with the growing AIDS crisis.
This is well-written, but enjoyment ultimately depends on connecting with B.J. Which I did. I thought he was funny and was rooting for him. This is also an incredibly important topic, and still timely in 2019.
This is well-written, but enjoyment ultimately depends on connecting with B.J. Which I did. I thought he was funny and was rooting for him. This is also an incredibly important topic, and still timely in 2019.
December 7, 2021
The humor is wry and witty and sometimes laugh out loud funny but the novel itself is rife with flaws. The only three dimensional character is the protagonist B.J. Rosenthal (could Feinberg be more obvious with that name choice?). The dialogue is forced and the banter unrealistic. There are too many characters—some only appearing for a chapter, others re-appearing chapters later. And the opening chapter about the priest is totally out of sync with the rest of the novel and ultimately pointless.
Yet outside of all that Eighty-Sixed is the funniest, most realistic, unapologetic, heartbreakingly honest portrayal of gay life before and after the AIDS epidemic. Other writers who wrote about the AIDS crisis during this period were a bit pretentious, academic, and self-indulgent using flowery prose, euphemisms, and symbolism to get their point across. Feinberg tells-it-like-it-is in an accessible and charming manner.
In spite of my overall criticism, it's a good read that left me saddened but was enjoyable, nonetheless. Unfortunately, like so many other creative gay voices of the time, Feinberg became a victim of AIDS as well. So, we're left to wonder what other great stories he had that we left untold but at least he left us with Eighty-Sixed.
Yet outside of all that Eighty-Sixed is the funniest, most realistic, unapologetic, heartbreakingly honest portrayal of gay life before and after the AIDS epidemic. Other writers who wrote about the AIDS crisis during this period were a bit pretentious, academic, and self-indulgent using flowery prose, euphemisms, and symbolism to get their point across. Feinberg tells-it-like-it-is in an accessible and charming manner.
In spite of my overall criticism, it's a good read that left me saddened but was enjoyable, nonetheless. Unfortunately, like so many other creative gay voices of the time, Feinberg became a victim of AIDS as well. So, we're left to wonder what other great stories he had that we left untold but at least he left us with Eighty-Sixed.
June 14, 2020
This novel contrasts the life of BJ Rosenthal, a gay man living in New York City, before and after the advent of the AIDS epidemic. In 1980, his greatest concern is finding a boyfriend and he feels free to indulge his libido in a quest for the perfect man. In 1986, every potential liaison is conducted in the shadow of death as BJ attends the deaths of friends, participates in AIDS marches, and struggles to retain hope in the future. As grim as the subject matter becomes, author David Feinberg never loses his sense of humor. There are brief interludes between each chapter that would make for a fiercely hilarious and moving stage monologue.
David Steinberg, who was HIV positive, died at the age of 37 in 1994. The world is poorer for the loss of his voice.
https://thericochetreviewer.blogspot.com
David Steinberg, who was HIV positive, died at the age of 37 in 1994. The world is poorer for the loss of his voice.
https://thericochetreviewer.blogspot.com
May 11, 2019
A book that spins with the highs of the 80s and then crashes back to earth with the AIDS crisis looking ever closer, Eighty-Sixed provides a crucial and intimate glimpse into the inner life of a gay man trying to live and love.
March 31, 2013
Great prose and good homour. Seems to me a distinctly New York voice. Some parts of the writing , make you wish you could write like this about your own existence.
October 31, 2017
This is. Pretty good book. I like the subject matter. It’s extreme, and that is always interesting.
May 28, 2019
The plot of the book spans the years before and during the height of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. The book begins in the early 80s as we are introduced to an early twenty’s Benjamin “BJ” as he’s making his mark in New York City. He starts out in grad school and his attempts to find a boyfriend in the city. There’s a lot of comically raunchy descriptions of his encounters, which at first glance could be seen as obscene but a careful reading seems to be the character making fun of himself. Towards the end of the first half of the novel, we see BJ develop a community of friends.
The second section begins in January 1986. The AIDS crisis has decimated a lot of the gay community in NYC and BJ is no stranger to the social and emotional toll of the crisis. Through his voice readers are given an inside glimpse into a community in crisis as they attempt to fight for survival as well as care for those around them. I won’t say more about this section to avoid any spoilers.
This was a great book club pick. Yes, you should be aware that there are some graphic descriptions of sex. However, they aren’t just for titillation. BJ himself reveals how empty, pointless, and unhealthy these random “tricks” are. It’s also used as a counterpoint to BJ’s self-imposed celibacy in the second half. There’s a lot of content and craft to debate but all in all a good look at one slice of society during a time period you don’t hear much about in society at large. This was my first artistic, rather than historical, glimpse into the era. This was touching and insightful and prompted me to want to read more about the era of the AIDS crisis and to see what more contemporary writers are saying about it.
The second section begins in January 1986. The AIDS crisis has decimated a lot of the gay community in NYC and BJ is no stranger to the social and emotional toll of the crisis. Through his voice readers are given an inside glimpse into a community in crisis as they attempt to fight for survival as well as care for those around them. I won’t say more about this section to avoid any spoilers.
This was a great book club pick. Yes, you should be aware that there are some graphic descriptions of sex. However, they aren’t just for titillation. BJ himself reveals how empty, pointless, and unhealthy these random “tricks” are. It’s also used as a counterpoint to BJ’s self-imposed celibacy in the second half. There’s a lot of content and craft to debate but all in all a good look at one slice of society during a time period you don’t hear much about in society at large. This was my first artistic, rather than historical, glimpse into the era. This was touching and insightful and prompted me to want to read more about the era of the AIDS crisis and to see what more contemporary writers are saying about it.
March 30, 2022
David B. Feinberg’s astonishing diptych of a novel puts us first in 1980, when being a gay man in New York was A Lot Of Fun, and then in 1986, when the world was ending.
This book is remarkable in a couple of ways. Firstly, the way Feinberg writes about bodies: bodies in motion, bodies in lust, bodily functions, bodily cravings. It’s a visceral book and a book that doesn’t flinch away from the messiness of having a body, and the ways it can fail you. Secondly, it’s really fucking funny. Like, laugh out loud funny. And I never laugh at books. But it’s dense with jokes, packed full like a Victoria Wood monologue, insights and quips that make you snort and wince out of painful recognition and total surprise alike.
Feinberg’s books haven’t been reissued in the UK since 2002. I couldn’t help but think as I read the second half with its AIDS narrative about the writings of people like Hanya Yanagihara, whose books drip with sentiment and ache with a grief that feels forced and arch. We’re losing the authentic voices in favour of grandiose and sycophantic ones.
There’s not a whisper of self-pity anywhere in this book. There is pain, there is anger, but never self-pity. It’s gay men as they actually are with each other.
This book is remarkable in a couple of ways. Firstly, the way Feinberg writes about bodies: bodies in motion, bodies in lust, bodily functions, bodily cravings. It’s a visceral book and a book that doesn’t flinch away from the messiness of having a body, and the ways it can fail you. Secondly, it’s really fucking funny. Like, laugh out loud funny. And I never laugh at books. But it’s dense with jokes, packed full like a Victoria Wood monologue, insights and quips that make you snort and wince out of painful recognition and total surprise alike.
Feinberg’s books haven’t been reissued in the UK since 2002. I couldn’t help but think as I read the second half with its AIDS narrative about the writings of people like Hanya Yanagihara, whose books drip with sentiment and ache with a grief that feels forced and arch. We’re losing the authentic voices in favour of grandiose and sycophantic ones.
There’s not a whisper of self-pity anywhere in this book. There is pain, there is anger, but never self-pity. It’s gay men as they actually are with each other.
March 23, 2018
One of the best books of AIDS fiction I've ever read. It really puts you in the twin places of gay cruising culture before and after AIDS broke. A funny, sobering novel about queer trauma, the guilt of the living, and the absurdity of it all.
December 30, 2020
Well that was depressing AF. But I knew what I was getting into. We must never forget.
April 13, 2023
So many thoughts! I cried! I laughed! Everyone must read!
December 29, 2021
"Eighty-Sixed" is an excellent hybrid novel by David Feinberg and is about gay men being eighty-sixed or wiped out by AIDS. I say hybrid because he intercepts short chapters periodically that are in italics and are condensations of lists or gatherings of things. A few titles of these short chapters: "How to Get Rid of the Trick Who Won't Leave," "Boyfriends: Pros and Cons," "When I Cried," "Some Symptoms." These are breaks from the story that give a break to the reader and add dimension, levity or depth.
The quote he uses in the front of the book is, "What I claim to live to the full the contradiction of my time, which may well make sarcasm the condition of truth." —Roland Bathes, Mythologies
The first half of the book is titled "1980: Ancient History;" the second half "1986: Learning How to Cry;" Each section is broken into chapters by month: Jan-Dec. I loved the first half of the book, the hey day of sex, drugs & disco set in New York City. Then the second half, of course AIDS has entered. This half is much harder and about a third of it I disliked because the main character has no boundaries and when he starts therapy he is not using it well. But then that annoyance wears off and he goes deeper as he starts to visit and ex trick who is dying of AIDS, at first at a hospital than in a skilled nursing home.
In each of the two sections of the book he goes home once to visit family around a holiday. We come to understand the pain of having a father with a mental health issue who killed himself when he was a boy. It's a good book, well done, great dialogue, a campy sense of gay humor that he carries well even when it's hard to read. It's a very good capture of the 80s and the AIDS crisis, politically and up close.
The quote he uses in the front of the book is, "What I claim to live to the full the contradiction of my time, which may well make sarcasm the condition of truth." —Roland Bathes, Mythologies
The first half of the book is titled "1980: Ancient History;" the second half "1986: Learning How to Cry;" Each section is broken into chapters by month: Jan-Dec. I loved the first half of the book, the hey day of sex, drugs & disco set in New York City. Then the second half, of course AIDS has entered. This half is much harder and about a third of it I disliked because the main character has no boundaries and when he starts therapy he is not using it well. But then that annoyance wears off and he goes deeper as he starts to visit and ex trick who is dying of AIDS, at first at a hospital than in a skilled nursing home.
In each of the two sections of the book he goes home once to visit family around a holiday. We come to understand the pain of having a father with a mental health issue who killed himself when he was a boy. It's a good book, well done, great dialogue, a campy sense of gay humor that he carries well even when it's hard to read. It's a very good capture of the 80s and the AIDS crisis, politically and up close.
August 13, 2019
It took me a long time to read this book; what do I, gay and living in NZ, have in common with the main character, gay, living in NYC, during the early years of the AIDS crisis? I'm glad I persevered. The main similarity is the fact that we both lived during a time when AIDS is ever present - BJ, the character, unfortunately though during the early years, and myself, much much later.
The book is structured over a calendar year, and we see the life of BJ as a gay man in the NYC gay community. There's the large network of friends, lovers and ex-lovers. There's work. Family. His therapist. We see BJ chat with friends, boyfriends and ex-boyfriends, as slowly the spectre of AIDS looms over him. This is in the time when there were no easy HIV tests, so every swollen gland, every cough leads to a worry that it might lead to AIDS, which only time will tell.
I marvelled at the author's style of writing - it's a very fast paced action - something that is actually hard to pull off. It reflects I suppose the fast NYC environment where the author lived.
AS a piece of writing it stands as a historical piece, as we remember the way in which Regan shamefully denied any AIDS crisis and denied any funding for tests or research. And it stands for the many thousands of men who needlessly died.
The book is structured over a calendar year, and we see the life of BJ as a gay man in the NYC gay community. There's the large network of friends, lovers and ex-lovers. There's work. Family. His therapist. We see BJ chat with friends, boyfriends and ex-boyfriends, as slowly the spectre of AIDS looms over him. This is in the time when there were no easy HIV tests, so every swollen gland, every cough leads to a worry that it might lead to AIDS, which only time will tell.
I marvelled at the author's style of writing - it's a very fast paced action - something that is actually hard to pull off. It reflects I suppose the fast NYC environment where the author lived.
AS a piece of writing it stands as a historical piece, as we remember the way in which Regan shamefully denied any AIDS crisis and denied any funding for tests or research. And it stands for the many thousands of men who needlessly died.
July 23, 2012
I simply love the late David Feinberg's writing - topical, comical, so insightful & his fiction employs a fast-paced narrative, making subjects such as modern relationships, & AIDS/HIV engrossing, unlikely page-turner fair. "Eight-Sixed" is MUST-READ material.
The follow-up to this story, "Spontaneous Combustion" shared some of these traits but, due to the actual inevitability of the storyline, was hard for me to read. Don't believe I finished that one. Bares a second look from me all these years later.
The follow-up to this story, "Spontaneous Combustion" shared some of these traits but, due to the actual inevitability of the storyline, was hard for me to read. Don't believe I finished that one. Bares a second look from me all these years later.
August 1, 2019
This novel is about BJ Rosenthal, a homosexual man living in the 80's with a sexual appetite so big, it was only be suppressed by the deadly killer virus known as HIV/AIDS. During its era, it threatened to wipe out all of BJ's sexual boyfriends. Clearly, no one knew how profoundly those two abbreviated words were going to affect the human race, especially the homosexual community apart from BJ.
April 28, 2018
[1989] I was intrigued by the premise - two years in the life of a young, single, gay man looking for love, 1980 and 1986, between which, AIDS exploded. The first half was pretty much what I expected from the description and I enjoyed the angsty humor, but I was pretty disappointed in the second half. I expected a stark difference between the two years, but instead I found it very much the same but with less cruising, fewer tricks, and more anxiety. The main person profiled as dying from AIDS in the second half isn't someone the main character knew well or cared about, so it was hard to go on that journey with him in a meaningful way. I felt it just skimmed the surface (did more telling than showing) and missed the opportunity to take us deeper. If I didn’t know already know of the horrors devastating the gay community at that time, I wouldn't have gotten it from reading this. I also found the dialogue a little uneven, and I didn't feel that the time spent on his employee that wasn't working out and his trips back to his hometown moved the story forward at all. Still, I can't imagine how hard it would have been for the author to be writing this novel while living through it so there's something impressive about that alone.
May 3, 2023
Someone please tell me why this book isn't more well known today as part of the queer cannon. Eighty-Sixed reads like a time capsule. The first half of the book, AIDS-free gay life in NYC in 1980, reads like a dream of a time that once-was and what could have been. Reading this first half, I felt like I was invited to a party where everyone except me was oblivious to the fact a bomb was waiting to detonate and destroy everything. The second half of the book, 1986 NYC in the thick of the AIDS crisis, read like a nightmare. With saying that, I also was able to read the second half with the privilege of time and distance and medical breakthroughs knowing no matter how depressing the second half of the book may be, there is hope to come for what it means to be diagnosed as HIV+ 40 years later. I also appreciate the fact that the author was willing to write a book that was explicitly raunchy and funny and honest from a gay perspective — a perspective that would almost feel daring today let alone to be published in 1989.
May 21, 2021
B.J was a hero, saint and marytr, even though he based his entire thought patterns around character assassinations galore. I'm almost certain that once he sowed his wild oats enough, even with aids, he would end up as a far more focused gent in his 50's and onwards until old age.
B.J. made a career out of being miserable, which was intensified due to his Judaic background, just as Irish and Italian American gays tend to do all too often. Pyschoanalysis did little good, although he had more faith in it than he did any God, even though it only intensified his feelings of inadequacy and isolation. Thankfully, he wasn't seeking the brainwashing that 12 Step Cult meetings such as Sexaholics Anonymous were known for. The best thing he could have done from a therapeutic sense of view would have been to joint the free, mental health will training group called Recovery International, but that would have gone against the creed of his gay tribe.
B.J. just refused to acknowledge who he was, deep down below all of the gay conditioning. He was a straight laced Jewish boy who was overwelmed by situational and self-induced promiscuity and surrounding himself by jaded gay men whom he didn't even like in the first place, probably because his mother wouldn't have, but this didn't even cross his mind for a split-second. These men served as distractions from his being lost in the bottom of the sea, just as anonymous sex did. Due to these compulsions, he wasn't even the slightest bit aware that he was actually afraid to get better. I kept invisioning him if he became an avid speed walker, jogger, yoga participant, or somebody into Transindental Meditation, but, of course, that was the last thing that he wanted to do.
As everyone started to die, the end of the book sounded like a broken record of a sob story. Instead of surrounding himself with such misery, he might very well have either visited and/or taken up volunteer work amidst the hills of Cap Haitien, Haiti for a few weeks per year to realize how much he had materially. Incarcerating himself amidst the ghettoization of manhattan's sorded and dispirited gay word, with its nonstop and tribal forced-joviality and false bravado explains why so many gays 'retire' from the scene and move to the Catskill Mountains or Key West.
Feinberg is brilliant, nontheless, and blessedly spares us of any delving, probing, and analyzing whatsoever. the Late Activist Larry Kramer would have despised him, another example of a man who made a career out of being completely miserable.
August 20, 2018
Funny, heart-wrenching, fast fast fast, so worth the read. Immediately picked up the sequel, too!
February 5, 2022
I enjoyed reading this book, as much as you can enjoy a story about living during the worst years of AIDS. I thought it movingly captured what it was like to be a gay man at the time, including all of the fears, flirtations and frustrations that came with it. The specificity of BJ’s daily life was lovely and very fun to be a part of.
Unfortunately there are way too many characters to keep track of, and I had a hard time remembering who was who from chapter to chapter. I also don’t feel like I have a very deep understanding of who BJ was either, since his life always seems to be in relation to so many other people. I wanted there to be fewer characters so I could get to know each of them better.
Unfortunately there are way too many characters to keep track of, and I had a hard time remembering who was who from chapter to chapter. I also don’t feel like I have a very deep understanding of who BJ was either, since his life always seems to be in relation to so many other people. I wanted there to be fewer characters so I could get to know each of them better.
August 8, 2021
Every few years there's a think-piece about autofiction claiming it's a new trend as if it hasn't been around since Proust. Case in point is David Feinberg's B.J. Rosenthal, his roman à clef literary double who is also a gay man living in New York City in the 1980s. Eighty-Sixed is split into two parts: pre- and post-AIDS (or, at least, pre-discovery of AIDS.) (A CDC report published on June 5, 1981, is regarded as the first reporting on what would be later known as AIDS.) Rosenthal is witty and caustic, high-brow (the epigraph is a quote from Barthes and you'll add some great 10 cent words to your vocabulary) but unpretentious. He's young and in shape and a little self-centered and incredibly neurotic. The first part, which takes place in 1980, is about B.J.'s friends and love life. The second part, which takes place in 1986, is about work drama, family drama, and AIDS malaise. The main conflict is man vs. government: As the U.S. is inactive in the fight for a cure, B.J. hardens into fatalism as he watches an acquaintance, Bob Broome, wither away under the duress of the virus.
Feinberg published the book in 1989—two years after he himself was diagnosed with AIDs. He died in 1994. Most of the book is self-deprecating, light-humored fare. The end, however, is a sad note played with finesse.
Feinberg published the book in 1989—two years after he himself was diagnosed with AIDs. He died in 1994. Most of the book is self-deprecating, light-humored fare. The end, however, is a sad note played with finesse.
April 4, 2019
This is almost a fantastic read, but like a badger trying to reach a jar of honey from the top shelf using a just too short set of steps, it's not quite there.
By halves a Withnail & I style tale of gay debauchery and life in NYC in 1980 - fun, fast, shallow and anything but monogamous, and then a furious rage against the dying of the light in 1986 and the AIDs epidemic (and by thunder it brings home how awful and terrifying it must've been to be a gayman back then) there's a lot of fun, power and emotion to this tale - the last paragraph in particular has a powerful oomph to it that will stick with you. However at other times Feinberg doesn't quite dig deep enough in the characters he's created, leaving them a tad unknown and unrealised.
So, a very good and necessary read but not quite the classic it could've been.
By halves a Withnail & I style tale of gay debauchery and life in NYC in 1980 - fun, fast, shallow and anything but monogamous, and then a furious rage against the dying of the light in 1986 and the AIDs epidemic (and by thunder it brings home how awful and terrifying it must've been to be a gayman back then) there's a lot of fun, power and emotion to this tale - the last paragraph in particular has a powerful oomph to it that will stick with you. However at other times Feinberg doesn't quite dig deep enough in the characters he's created, leaving them a tad unknown and unrealised.
So, a very good and necessary read but not quite the classic it could've been.
June 10, 2018
Interesting to see what gay life was like in the 80s, even before AIDS. However, without an interest in the general subject matter, this is a pretty boring book. The writing isn't great, the jokes get very tedious, and there's no emotional connection to the characters. Perhaps that's meant to show how the AIDS crisis was—taking care of people you didn't really know beyond a hook-up—but it's a long slog for 300+ pages.
July 19, 2011
I fiiiiinally slogged through this one. I read a lot of gay fiction and gay memoir (this is supposedly some combination of both) and I was looking forward to this one. It's actually pretty boring, a vibe I wasn't expecting from a book full of sex, death, and anxiety. The quality of the writing simply isn't there. A good editor would have helped.
May 19, 2017
This book provided an eye opening contrast between BJ's life as a gay man in NYC in 1980 and his life in 1986. The main difference was of course AIDS. It changed BJ's life in many ways. It is a reminder of where we have come from, and why we don't want to go back. With the threats today to healthcare in America, this book has become very relevant once again.
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