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  3. Close to the Knives

EBOOK

Close to the Knives

A Memoir of Disintegration

David Wojnarowicz
3.8
(12)
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Pages
279
Year
2014
Language
English
Publisher
Open Road Media

About

The savage, beautiful, and unforgettable memoirs of an extraordinary artist, activist, and iconoclast who lit up the New York art scene in the late twentieth century David Wojnarowicz's brief but eventful life was not easy. From a suburban adolescence marked by neglect, drugs, prostitution, and abuse to a squalid life on the streets of New York City, to fame-and infamy-as an activist and controversial visual artist whose work was lambasted in the halls of Congress, all before his early death from AIDS at age thirty-seven, Wojnarowicz seemed to be at war with a homophobic "establishment" and the world itself. Yet what emerged from the darkness was a truly extraordinary artist and human being-an angry young man of remarkable poetic sensibilities who was inordinately sympathetic to those who, like him, lived and struggled outside society's boundaries. Close to the Knives is his searing yet strangely beautiful account told in a collection of powerful essays. An author whom reviewers have compared to Kerouac and Genet, David Wojnarowicz mesmerizes, horrifies, and delights in equal measure with his unabashed honesty. At once savage and funny, poignant and sexy, compassionate and unforgiving, his words and stories cut like knives, leaving indelible marks on all who read them.

Related Subjects

  • Literary Figures
  • Biography & Autobiography
  • Adult Nonfiction
  • Violence in Society
  • Social Science
  • LGBTQ+
  • Social Activists
  • Gay Studies
  • LGBTQ+ Studies
  • Lgbtq+

Reviews

"David Wojnarowicz has caught the age-old voice of the road, the voice of the traveler, the outcast, the thief, the whore, the same voice that was heard in Villon's Paris, in the Rome of Petronius. Pick up his book and listen."
William S. Burroughs
"Wojnarowicz's writing fairly smokes with acrid ironies. It's passionate and personal."
New York magazine
"Wojnarowicz explores all of his painful life experiences as a plea for all of us to become more compassionate and caring human beings. This isn't just David's story, it's our story, our nation's story."
New York magazine

Artists

David WojnarowiczAuthor