Part of His Story

His lover's death from AIDS in 1986 sends actor and playwright Avery Walsh to London, away from friends and familiar places, where he can begin the healing process by immersing himself in the laborious project of writing the biography of 17th-century playwright Colley Cibber. By adopting an unfamiliar routine, Avery is able to become someone else, evading the pressing issues of his own existence--including whether or not he too has contracted the AIDS virus. While researching and writing about the obscure playwright, he begins recollecting the life of his lover, Joshua, and soon realizes that there are certain emotions, thought processes and subtle nuances that even the best biographer is not able to capture. Slowly, however, the London social scene draws him from his work. He makes a few acquaintances: an American biographer, a lesbian named Corinne, whose brother is also dying of AIDS; Maeve, an Irish political activist; and Maeve's younger brother, Derek, with whom Avery unexpectedly falls in love. Through his love for Derek, Avery is forced to look outside his work and face himself. Though Corn, poet and critic who here tries his hand for the first time at a novel, ably captures the gay community's early fear of and uncertainty about AIDS, the novel reads too much like a memoir, with little tension and narrative drive. Corn's writing, however, is sincere, and, when writing about emotional turmoil, his language is at its most expressive. (Mar.)