November 30, 2001. GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

The virus in black and white

The Day Eazy-E Died

by James Earl Hardy Alyson, $21.95 hardcover

The Marble Quilt

by David Leavitt

Houghton Mifflin, $24 hardcover

Reviewed by Earl Pike

Literature about AIDS, like the virus itself, has mutated. There is no single story about AIDS; there are many, and though there are often common themes, there are also vast differences. The New York, middle class, gay white narrative represented in a work like The Normal Heart has been supplemented by a diversity of tongues, and that is a good thing. Plus, gay white male explorations of AIDS have tackled new ground, as the epidemic itself evolves and shifts. Two recent works illustrate.

Readers have followed the lives and passions of James Earl Hardy's Raheim and Mitchell (Little Bit) since the 1994 publication of B-Boy Blues termed, and accurately so, by E. Lynn Harris as the "first gay hiphop love story." Now, in The Day Eazy-E Died, Hardy's fourth book, he has turned his attention squarely to the spoken and unspoken tensions and realities of HIV among Afri-

can American gay men.

At the out-

set, Raheim is stunned by the public

an-

nouncement

JAMES EARL

HARDY

the day 4zy o disd

that NWA founder and hip-hop artist Eazy-E has AIDS. Like other disclosures--Rock Hudson, Liberace, Magic Johnson, Greg Louganis the public phenomenon sets in motion private, self-examination. Raheim decides to get tested, and over the next three weeks-the entire span of the novel-lives his daily life, and endures his anxieties, as he waits for the results.

There is much to be admired in this novel. Hardy explores African American dimensions of AIDS like few other writers have. A scene where barber shop customers hotly debate whether AIDS is a government-managed conspiracy against black and brown people could be lifted whole from a thousand similar conversations that have occurred, and continue to take place, in African American communities. Hardy has always provided deft renderings of the uncertainties and ambiguities of African American gay identity, as contrasted with "I'm here, I'm queer, get over it" representations of white gay identity.

The real strength of the novel, though, is the ongoing growth of mutual respect and love between Raheim and Little Bit as they face life, with all its upheavals, together. Hardy continues to hold up affirming, sus-

taining portraits of two black gay men in love. God knows, such images are rare. The underlying message is clear: love and community-in addition to condoms and testing-will help us survive.

If Hardy's writing scratches and pulses with the rhythm of hip-hop, David Leavitt's writing lies at the other end of the literary spectrum. He is formal, often stylized, sometimes academic. That may sound like a criticism, but it's not: Leavitt wields language with grace and precision, and his newest work, The Marble Quilt, is no exception.

At the center of this collection of short stories is an unusually long, unusually structured story, "The Infection Scene." Counterpointing a young gay man determined to acquire HIV infection with accounts from the life of Lord Alfred Douglas-the turn-of-the-century companion of Oscar Wilde whose scandalous loves and hatreds shocked Europe-the story is a remarkable exploration of belonging and attachment:

"Think about it: when everyone you know is HIV-positive, when everywhere you look HIV-positive men and women are banding together to form not merely families but a society to serve the needs of which whole industries have cropped up how can you not feel that you have been left behind? Bear in mind that this condition was unique to a few urban centers, San Francisco chief among them: cities in which the HIV-positive had their own magazines, rites, habits and philosophies and language; to weary an already wearied word, their own culture. More potently, with one another... the HIV-positive could flout the totemic restraints of safer sex. Infection threw them free from caution. and so they could throw caution to the wind. and with one another do what they wanted, as much as they wanted, while on the outskirts the seronegative watched meekly, enviously. nursing their fear.”

It's a stunning passage, and gives sense to what's been widely reported as a new phenomenon: gay men either deliberately seeking infection, or abandoning safer sex with the full realization that infection is a likely, if not inevitable, result.

Others stories in the collection are equally accomplished. "Black Box," in its own way. also touches on AIDS: when the main character's partner dies in a plane crash, those around him express surprise that a gay death was not synonymous with "wasting, dementia." In "The Scruff of the Neck," an elderly caregiver is buried with the discovery of a well-kept family secret unearthed by a distant cousin preparing a thesis; in “The Marble Quilt," a American in Italy is interrogated about the murder of his ex-lover.

All nine stories are worth visiting, and lingering in the visit. Leavitt, who has already given us The Lost Language of Cranes, Equal Affections, and half a dozen other works, once again demonstrates, in The Marble Quilt, why he is one of the best gay writers in America today. ✓

Earl Pike is the executive director of the AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland.

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