- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Abacus; New Ed edition (5 Aug 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0349110611
- ISBN-13: 978-0349110615
- Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 19.8 x 2.7 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 603,652 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
A wildly imaginative tour de force - impressive, stunning (Fenton Johnson )
In its unflinching refusal to bury the darkness with its postmodernist pyrotechnics, it is a camera obscura in which our miserable century can view the dumbshow of its cruel procession. This book is not to be missed. (Rick Wallach )
An absolutely brilliant book... an antidote for anyone who suffers from the blahs or an excess of self-satisfaction'. Amy Tan ('Transcends the ubiquity of AIDS as a subject, to become a much wider and more universal meditation on the vagaries of life (and death)’ )
GAY TIMES ('Hyperactive and apocalyptic - 1990s lesson in how to mix a warzone (Beirut), sex (AIDS) and destruction (the Grim Reaper) and come up laughing’ )
In its unflinching refusal to bury the darkness with its postmodernist pyrotechnics, it is a camera obscura in which our miserable century can view the dumbshow of its cruel procession. This book is not to be missed. (Rick Wallach )
An absolutely brilliant book... an antidote for anyone who suffers from the blahs or an excess of self-satisfaction'. Amy Tan ('Transcends the ubiquity of AIDS as a subject, to become a much wider and more universal meditation on the vagaries of life (and death)’ )
GAY TIMES ('Hyperactive and apocalyptic - 1990s lesson in how to mix a warzone (Beirut), sex (AIDS) and destruction (the Grim Reaper) and come up laughing’ )
INDEPENDENT
'Unsettling ... A moving and angry book'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I found this book quite by chance through Amazon a couple of years back. An amazing book, a kaleidoscope of stories in a story, real and imagined, of the fates of war-torn lives, homosexuality and its taboos in the Middle East, San Francisco, dying of AIDS, memories of Beirut in the old days - it can get confusing at times, but never, never boring. A fantastic read.
The reason I wanted to put in a review for it today, is that I just finished reading his latest book, "I, the Divine", and feel that "Kool Aids" is an important book to read if you want to discover this wonderful, wonderful writer!!
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
23 reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Original and insightful novel.
27 April 1998
Format:Hardcover
For any gay man who participated in gay/queer communities in the late 1980's, reading "Koolaids" will be like experiencing a long, accurate and precise memory of those furious and painful times (details of life during the epidemic are interspersed with vignettes about war-era Beirut. Trust me - it works.)
"Koolaids" is not just a good book. It is angry (Remember when people were angry? Ah, what a lark!), funny, queer and smart. It is original. Many previous AIDS memoirs/fictions have been precious accounts of loss, sweaters and Paris. Really. If you pick up the three most famous gay male memoirs about AIDS, you will read as much about France and good cheese and fine wine as you will about loss and disease. These books say more about the authors' sartorial and gastronomic preferences than about the epidemic or the times. "Koolaids", on the other hand, reminds us of the uses of anger and grief, and of what the virus did to individuals, communities and a nation. By returning the reader to a wholly different era, "Koolaids" makes history.
"Koolaids" is not just a good book. It is angry (Remember when people were angry? Ah, what a lark!), funny, queer and smart. It is original. Many previous AIDS memoirs/fictions have been precious accounts of loss, sweaters and Paris. Really. If you pick up the three most famous gay male memoirs about AIDS, you will read as much about France and good cheese and fine wine as you will about loss and disease. These books say more about the authors' sartorial and gastronomic preferences than about the epidemic or the times. "Koolaids", on the other hand, reminds us of the uses of anger and grief, and of what the virus did to individuals, communities and a nation. By returning the reader to a wholly different era, "Koolaids" makes history.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
buy this book
2 July 2002
Format:Paperback
This book is brilliant, able to be humorous and entertaining even as it takes you into some of the darkest moments of our time. The juxtaposition of the AIDS crisis in America and the War in Lebanon is an effective choice, it creates a new perspective to two very emotionally difficult and recent parts of our history that we are still collectively coming to terms with. as a gay lebanese-american i found the voices of Alameddine's characters to be particularly haunting. Mr. Alameddine is an exciting and daring writer and I anxiously anticipate his new works while re-reading his currently published books.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Interesting juxtapositions
19 Jan 2000
Format:Paperback
Coming from a Lebanese-American family and living in Washington, I was interested in what Alemeddine was putting together in this book. Although it took me some time to touch each narrative to its central character -- there're quite a few central characters here -- I found the treatment of their separate but eerily similar situations sensitive and sensual. This is definitely worth reading, and I would hope that more English-speaking Lebanese and Lebanese-American writers come forth with valuable works.
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