Sixteen years after The Irreversible Decline of Eddie Socket
, Weir checks in with a follow-up that sparkles episodically but lacks the narrative drive of its celebrated predecessor. Fortyish novelist and Queens College professor Tom, who survived his 20s and 30s in a New York ravaged by AIDS, encounters a lifetime of demons during one jam-packed day in May 2000. Tom's straight boyhood friend Richie McShane, thinking he may be out of his depth on an Internet-arranged date with a person named Afrodytea, is bringing Tom along to chaperone. As the two navigate the five boroughs, Tom takes stock, pondering the wisdom of falling for his student Justin Innocenzio (a thuggish yet sensitive straight boy from Queens), and rehashing his first two love affairs (with suave older man Mark and street-smart girl Ava) and his early days with Richie. Most of all, though, Tom is haunted by friends lost to AIDS, particularly by the specter of Zack, a noisome, repellent activist from ACT UP days (possibly based on the late novelist David B. Feinberg, author of Eighty-Sixed
). Though Weir's prose has humor and grace to spare, a cliché ghost adviser and intrusions of lousy student poetry aren't camp enough, and an overly complicated narrative structure creates confusion. (Mar. 27
)
