BookReview: Such Times by Christopher Coe

While Timothy spends the evening with his closest friend Dominic, preparing for what should be an uneventful dinner, he starts to reminisce about the only great love of his life: Jasper. He discusses how they met, their little quirks, their house in Paris, their strange twenty-year relationship, and their dealings with HIV and AIDS.

I had a like/dislike relationship with this novel.

What I liked was the history it provided concerning the early days of the AIDS crisis, what life was like and how the disease changed everything. What I loved was how TImothy changed once he learned his own status. He went from interests in cooking and in music, with which he would begin with gusto only to taper off once his enthusiasm waned, to finally finding something to hold his interest, something to fight against and to keep him active rather than sitting on the sidelines. Timothy questions everything about HIV and AIDS, wants to learn all there is about it, to be up-to-date so that maybe, he will be able to save himself and his friends.

What I disliked was the characters themselves. I never believed in Timothy's love for Jasper, a man who seemed to fake an interest in Timothy though he had another, longer-term relationship all the while he and Timothy were together. I wanted Timothy to stop being a wuss, to show as much passion for his own happiness as he was giving to HIV/AIDS research, to give Jasper an ultimatum -- "it's him or me", if you will -- rather than remaining constantly indifferent to where the relationship was really going. At one point early on in the story, after a few hours of passionate lovemaking, Timothy catches Jasper walking around the streets of Paris with a young hustler in his arm -- and he doesn't really do anything other than show a slight distaste, perhaps a little anger, but nothing close to how I felt he should react.

So I give this a mixed review. For a chronicle of early life with HIV and AIDS, Such Times is a great read. I just had something else in mind regarding the characters themselves.

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