Conocimiento común

Fecha de nacimiento: 1972-02-15
Género: male
Educación: University of California, San Diego (BA|Visual Arts, 1994)
Ocupaciones: editor
artist

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The author of this book committed suicide por Aaron Krach

From the artist:

“From July 19-26, 2012, I checked out every available book in the New York Public Library written by an author who committed suicide. I stamped each book’s title page with this information and exhibited the collection in How to Write a Novel at Field Projects, NYC. At the end of the show, all the stamped books were returned to general circulation at NYPL.”
The book includes scans of the title page of each book in the exhibition.

Denunciada

petervanbeveren | Jul 21, 2020 |

Half-Life: A Novel por Aaron Krach

Esta reseña ha sido escrita para Sorteo de miembros LibraryThing.

This was a free book from the author on LibraryThing. I finished the book, but the story didn't grab me until page 150; even then, there were times where I was missing something: I just didn't get it. The writing was fine, I guess it was the story that didn't excite me. I gave it my best shot, at least I finished it.

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lupoman | 8 reseñas más. | Feb 5, 2010 |

Half-life por Aaron Krach

Esta reseña ha sido escrita para Sorteo de miembros LibraryThing.

Half-life by Aaron Krach is the second book that I've received through LibraryThing's Member Giveaways program, a spin-off of the Early Reviewers program. It's an interesting coincidence that both of the books I won were about gay men and that neither of them were really coming-out stories. But the two have few similarities beyond that--King of Cats follows an older, well-established English guitarist and those surrounding him while Half-life follows Adam, a southern Californian teenager just starting out, and his friends and family. One thing I hadn't realized when I submitted my request for Half-life was that it was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in 2004 for best debut novel. So, when I found that out, and when I found out that I had won the drawing for the book, I was very excited to read it.

Adam Westman is a senior at Angelito High School in Los Angeles with nothing much but finals and graduation to look forward to. He does still need to find a job for the summer to earn a bit of extra cash before heading to Standford to study English literature. But the sudden death of his father Greg changes everything and nothing. He still has his close friends Dart and Fran to hang out at the "Sev" with, and he never really felt that his father was there for him or his sister Sandra anyways. Now his self-absorbed mother Vivian has to start paying more attention and his stepfather Marc is doing his best to be there for them all. But along with death comes a chance at love--cop Jeff Manfield was one of the officers present at the scene of Greg's death. Although twenty years older than Adam, the two men have a romantic attraction for one another even considering the circumstances of their meeting.

Half-life is somewhat a slow, quiet book, which isn't to say that there aren't personal crises or conflicts because there certainly are--Krach simply isn't in your face about it. The story doesn't have a intense plot, it is about everyday people going about their everyday lives; feelings are going to get hurt and misunderstanding are bound to occur. So while the book isn't very flashy or over-dramatic, it still has quite a bit of feeling to it. The entire story takes place in 1999 between June 6 and June 21--two weeks that are magnified and closely examined day by day. I particularly enjoyed this technique since it showed just how important the little, and big, things in life really are.

Half-life provides a glimpse into the lives of its many primary and secondary characters. I was expecting the story to be mostly about Adam, but while he serves as a focal point the book is really about everyone, their relationships with one another, and the occasional missed connection. It is also a book about transitions and how people deal with them--or don't. Adam and his classmates are graduating, getting read to face "real life." His family circumstances change as they all adjust to the loss of his father. And falling in love will make other demands. Krach's storytelling is a prominent feature of the book; I was always very aware of the narrator and the fact that I was being told a story. The style is flippant and sassy with asides directed towards the reader every now and then. While Krach's style might be distracting for some, I found myself quite taken with it and enjoyed the book immensely.

Experiments in Reading… (más)

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PhoenixTerran | 8 reseñas más. | Jan 12, 2010 |

Half-Life: A Novel por Aaron Krach

Esta reseña ha sido escrita para Sorteo de miembros LibraryThing.

I liked this book. At first I was concerned about the age difference and the thought of a high school age boy attracting an older police officer, but found the characters to be believable.

The only drawback was that I wanted the story to continue. I felt as if I was left hanging.

Denunciada

palominopup | 8 reseñas más. | Aug 24, 2009 |

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