Where the Rainbow Ends

by Jameson Currier

Book Overview

This powerful, compelling, and heartfelt first novel centers on Robbie Taylor, an optimistic and romantic young man who settles in New York City in 1978 with a circle of new friends. Where the Rainbow... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0879518928
• ISBN13: 9780879518929
• Release Date: October 1998
• Publisher: Overlook Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

A Wonder to Behold

Stephen Mead, author of Hang Onto Your Teeth If universities ever begin studies on the early days of the AIDS pandemic in America, "Where The Rainbow Ends" should be considered a must-read. Eloquent, passionate, full of heart: this book is a seminal masterpiece.

a heart rendering treatis on the age of AIDS

I loved this book! epic and breathtaking in scope with an easy relaxed, fluent style; this book takes you on an incredible "gay odyssey" I have never read a novel that so effectively encompasses all aspects of gay life and sensibilities. Sexy, romantic, sad and melancholy; this book takes us on a wonderful journey as we navigate the highs and lows of Robbie, a young gay "everyman". Through his eyes we witness the sexy hedonism of the Manhattan gay scene in the late 70's, the AIDS ravaged Reagan years of the early to mid 80's and the 90's AIDS activism of LA. Effectively incorporating historical fact with fiction, Currier has painted a fascinating portrait of Robbie and his four friends; their loves, losses, achievements and disappointments. Thematically there are many, many important issues relating to gay life and the homosexual identity being addressed here: questions of faith, religion, and spirituality and whether these can apply to a modern gay man. The importance of family; Currier raises the essential question, What constitutes a family? Is family by blood or is true family friendship? Issues regarding contemporary sexual politics are also discussed particularly the politics of AIDS activism and the attitudes that big business and government had towards the disease in the late 80's and early 90's. This is a beautiful, eloquent, sexy and at times a disturbing chronicle of the ravages of AIDS and the impact that the disease has had on a whole generation od gay men. Currier gives us an uncanny insight in to the mind of Robbie never compromising the gritty realism, this novel tells it like it is. I would recommend this novel as essential reading not just for every gay men but for anyone who has ever has been touched by AIDS or who has had to struggle against adversity.Michael Leonard

A heartfelt and moving story of a gay man coming of age

In beautiful and uncluttered prose, this book manages to tell the very moving story of Robbie Taylor as he arrrives in New York in 1978 and meets the people who will change his life forever. In an almost epic sweep,the author makes the personal historical and the historical personal through the stories that are told in this wonderful book. The novel achieves what many before it have tried as these character's stories become an almost complete compendium of gay life in America in the last twenty years. This is also a stirring tribute to the many who have died of AIDS. At the risk of sounding trite, this book made me laugh and it made me cry, something very few books have ever managed to do - it's full of the stuff of life.  

my vote for a great gay novel

I was astonished by the insight and scope of this book. Jameson Currier has managed to tell the large story of what it is like to be a gay man growing of age in the 1970s and into the troubles of the AIDS epidemic on both a personal and historical level as well as tackling such issues as relationships, faith, and families. This is an amazingly accomplished work not only because of the deft and inspired use of language, but because Currier's powerful accumulation of detail transforms a tragic story into an emotionally uplifting literary experience.

packed with the stuff of life

Currier is an accomplished short story writer, and it shows in this first novel; the reader repeatedly has a sense of closure, only to experience delighted relief that this is indeed long fiction and the more is to come. Packed with the stuff of life, this rewarding work might be termed a "gay immigrant" novel, a saga about men and women who leave their hometown and families, move to the big cities, and fashion new lives in an alien land. Currier (Dancing on the Moon: Short Stories About AIDS, Viking, 1993) takes his characters from the late 1960s, through the hedonistic 1970s, and into the AIDS-riddled 1980s and politically charged 1990s. Their stores are ones of profound loss -- of biological families, of friends, and of intimate relationships. It's little wonder that Currier draws clear parallels to the story of Job -- the underlying question is one of faith that, on the other side of pain, there is meaning after all. Recommended for public and academic libraries. Roger W. Durbin, University of Akron Library, Ohio Library Journal. October 15, 1998