Summary:

During the Battle of Smolensk in the Second Word War, a soldier named Zazetsky sustained a severe head wound, causing "massive damage to the left occipito-parietal region of his brain." This injury shattered his whole perceptual world. His memory, his visual fields, his bodily perception, even his knowledge of bodily functioning--all break into fragments, causing him to experience the world (and himself) as constantly shifting and unstable.

Zazetsky coped with this fragmentation by writing a journal of his thoughts and memories as they occurred, day after day, for 20 years. He then arranged and ordered these entries, in an attempt to reconstruct his lost "self." From over 3000 pages of this journal material, the neurologist A. R. Luria has constructed this extended case history from which emerges a remarkable portrait of Zazetsky as a determined and courageous human being. Zazetsky's first-person account is interspersed with comments and descriptions by Luria himself, explaining the relevant structure and function of the brain.

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This is the most detailed and comprehensive biography of Anton P. Chekhov written to date. Rayfield is a Chekhov scholar who published an earlier biography of the writer in 1975. There are numerous biographies of Chekhov available. In the Preface to this book, Rayfield explains why he wrote it. Chekhov's life is documented by a vast amount of archival material, much of which was unavailable to Western scholars in the past. Russian scholars have studied these sources extensively, but the studies they have published use only a small part of the material. Rayfield's own study convinced him that by drawing liberally from these archives he could write a new biography that would increase our understanding of Chekhov's life and character.

Rayfield's approach is strictly chronological. The book consists of 84 short chapters, each one named and subtitled with the period covered (e.g. July - August 1894). Rayfield sticks closely to the texts, developing a rather staccato style that is heavy on factual statements and light on his own interpretations. He also chooses not to discuss Chekhov's writings as such, except to present brief summaries of the plays and some of the more important stories, and to indicate relationships between Chekhov's life and his art.

The new material gives us a much better view of the day-to-day texture of Chekhov's life, his interactions with family and friends, and his interesting and enigmatic relationships with women. The book also includes a helpful diagram of the Chekhov family tree, two maps of Chekhov's country, and many photographs.

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Felipe Montero, a young historian, accepts a live-in position, editing the memoirs of General Llorente, whose elderly widow, Consuelo, seeks their publication before her death. In the dark, enclosed house, filled with the perfumes of medicinal plants, Felipe dreams of sexual union, and escape, with the young beautiful niece, Aura; and he reads of Consuelo's infertility, her fantasy of medicinally creating a spiritual child, her delirium of walking toward her youth. Intoxicated by desire and the stifling atmosphere, Felipe embraces Aura, who transforms into the 109-year-old widow. Consuelo promises, "She will return, Felipe. Together, we will bring her back."

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Without is Donald Hall's thirteenth book of poems. It was written in memory of his wife, the poet, Jane Kenyon, who died of leukemia in their New Hampshire home at the age of 47. Interspersed among the poems in the first half of this book is a major poem, "Her Long Illness." Following that poem is the title poem.

Without is followed by a series of poems, titled as letters ("Midsummer Letter," "Letter After a Year," etc.) that chronicle Hall's grief and his attempt to go on living--without his wife. The final poem in the collection, "Weeds and Peonies," places speaker and reader in Kenyon's garden a year after her death and ends as we see her "peonies lean their vast heads westward / as if they might topple. Some topple."

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This first published work of fiction by Gertrude Stein includes two stories, "The Good Anna" (71 pp.) and "The Gentle Lena" (40 pp.); and a novella, "Melanctha" (151 pp.) Each one is a psychological portrait of the named protagonist. All three are members of the lower socioeconomic stratum of the fictional town of Bridgepoint.

"The Good Anna" tells the story of a German immigrant who kept house for Miss Mathilda. Anna was honest, steadfast, and loyal as the day is long, but she was also stern and difficult to deal with. Anna's special friend was Mrs. Lehntman, the romance of her life. After Miss Mathilda moved to a far country, Anna took in boarders for a living, didn't make much money, and after a while died. "The Gentle Lena" is the story of another German servant girl who married unhappily and died shortly after the birth of her fourth child.

"Melanctha" is an extended portrait of Melanctha Herbert, a mulatto woman, and her unhappy love affair with Dr. Jeff Campbell, the doctor who took care of Melanctha's mother during her final illness. Much of the novella consists of protracted conversations between Melanctha and Jeff and extensive descriptions of their respective mental states.

Eventually the two lovers drifted apart. Melanctha took up with Jem Richards, "who always had to know what it was to have true wisdom." But that relationship didn't work out either. Melanctha became depressed and considered suicide. After she recovered from depression, she developed consumption and died.

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Follows the last few months in the life of Wendal Bailey, an African-American bisexual male in his early 30's. Examined in this drama are Wendal's two worlds; one which revolves around his lovers, the other based in the home of his extended family - his mother, father, "aunt", brother and 12-year-old son. After nearly dying of AIDS, Wendal comes home to regain his strength and find comfort, but a festive evening celebrating his return turns into a disaster. Shortly after this debacle, the only support and love he finds as he lies in his death- bed comes from an unexpected source - his previously stern, disapproving and homophobic father.

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This novel tells the story of Jess Goldberg, a transgendered "butch" growing up in Buffalo, New York. Jess first learns to admit and negotiate her attraction to women and her butch identity. Immediately, she is faced with violence. The police raid the lesbian bars, arrest any woman wearing fewer than three articles of women’s clothing and routinely beat, strip, or rape them. Jess and her friends also face the violence of bashers who attack without cause on dark or well-lighted streets.

Nevertheless, Jess refuses to compromise. From a doctor, she gets a prescription for testosterone, goes to a gym and transforms herself into a bearded, muscular man. Having saved two thousand dollars, she has a mastectomy done. The doctor falsifies a biopsy, performs the surgery and makes her leave. By the end of the novel, Jess is secure in her identity and determines to fight to make the world safe for others like her.

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This work is an AIDS play based on the Faust legend. The main character, Simon, is both homosexual and homophobic, a combination which the author believes to be less threatening to the "latent homophobes in the audience." Simon strikes a deal with the devil in order to reverse his HIV positive antibody status. The bargain struck entails deceiving and then abandoning his friends and changing his sexual identity. The vehicle for Simon's change is an "Andrew Dice Clay-like" nightclub act, the source of the play's dark humor.

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This beautifully crafted short novel chronicles a twenty year period, from the early 1970's to the early 1990's, in the life of a law professor, Max Strong, and the interesting highbrow characters who influence his life. Most notable among those characters are a college friend, now a world renowned architect, Charlie Swan, and Charlie's lover, Toby. The final sections of this novel offer a remarkable account of Toby's death from AIDS and Charlie's reaction to his death.

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This is the narrative of an old doctor. Once greatly admired, he is now ridiculed by young doctors who find his techniques outdated and his lectures boring. His specialty is microbiology; his lab works on AIDS. His daughter asks him to support a group demanding that researchers release without so much delay the preventive drugs they are developing for AIDS patients. The doctor refuses on the grounds that the drugs need more testing. Later he finds out that his son is dying of AIDS.

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