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The Very Heart of It: New York Diaries, 1983-1994
From the renowned novelist, journalist, and critic, an exquisite collection of journal entries from the 80s and 90s, tracking a young, gay author’s literary coming of age during the AIDS crisis.
In 1983, Thomas Mallon was still unknown. A literature professor at Vassar College, his days were spent travelling from Manhattan to campus, reviewing books to make ends meet, and searching the city for his own purpose and fulfillment. The AIDS epidemic was beginning to surge in New York City, the ever-bustling epicenter of literary culture and gay life, alive with parties, art, and sex.
Though he didn’t know it, everything would soon change for Mallon. Riding the success of his first book, A Book of One’s Own, he became a fixture within the city’s literary scene—crossing paths with cultural giants, becoming an editor at GQ, and writing critically acclaimed books—all of which he captured through daily journals. But in some ways, it was the worst possible time for a gay coming of age in the city, as one of his lovers succumbed to AIDS and the illness of others was both a heartbreaking reality and a constant reminder of his own exposure.
Tracing his own life day by day, Mallon catalogued all that those years the hookups, intensifying politics, personal tragedies, as well as his own blossoming success and eventual romantic happiness. The Very Heart of It is a deft and bewitching look into the daily life of one of our most important literary figures, and a keepsake from a bygone era.
In 1983, Thomas Mallon was still unknown. A literature professor at Vassar College, his days were spent travelling from Manhattan to campus, reviewing books to make ends meet, and searching the city for his own purpose and fulfillment. The AIDS epidemic was beginning to surge in New York City, the ever-bustling epicenter of literary culture and gay life, alive with parties, art, and sex.
Though he didn’t know it, everything would soon change for Mallon. Riding the success of his first book, A Book of One’s Own, he became a fixture within the city’s literary scene—crossing paths with cultural giants, becoming an editor at GQ, and writing critically acclaimed books—all of which he captured through daily journals. But in some ways, it was the worst possible time for a gay coming of age in the city, as one of his lovers succumbed to AIDS and the illness of others was both a heartbreaking reality and a constant reminder of his own exposure.
Tracing his own life day by day, Mallon catalogued all that those years the hookups, intensifying politics, personal tragedies, as well as his own blossoming success and eventual romantic happiness. The Very Heart of It is a deft and bewitching look into the daily life of one of our most important literary figures, and a keepsake from a bygone era.
592 pages, Hardcover
First published June 3, 2025
43 people are currently reading
676 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Mallon
40 books287 followersThomas Mallon is an American novelist, essayist, and critic. His novels are renowned for their attention to historical detail and context and for the author's crisp wit and interest in the "bystanders" to larger historical events. He is the author of ten books of fiction, including Henry and Clara, Two Moons, Dewey Defeats Truman, Aurora 7, Bandbox, Fellow Travelers (recently adapted into a miniseries by the same name), Watergate, Finale, Landfall, and most recently Up With the Sun. He has also published nonfiction on plagiarism (Stolen Words), diaries (A Book of One's Own), letters (Yours Ever) and the John F. Kennedy assassination (Mrs. Paine's Garage), as well as two volumes of essays (Rockets and Rodeos and In Fact).
He is a former literary editor of Gentleman's Quarterly, where he wrote the "Doubting Thomas" column in the 1990s, and has contributed frequently to The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The American Scholar, and other periodicals. He was appointed a member of the National Council on the Humanities in 2002 and served as Deputy Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 2005 to 2006.
His honors include Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships, the National Book Critics Circle citation for reviewing, and the Vursell prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for distinguished prose style. He was elected as a new member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012.
He is a former literary editor of Gentleman's Quarterly, where he wrote the "Doubting Thomas" column in the 1990s, and has contributed frequently to The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The American Scholar, and other periodicals. He was appointed a member of the National Council on the Humanities in 2002 and served as Deputy Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 2005 to 2006.
His honors include Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships, the National Book Critics Circle citation for reviewing, and the Vursell prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for distinguished prose style. He was elected as a new member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
June 9, 2025
A great peek at gay 80s/90s New York. Will be eye-opening and more than a little shocking for those that weren’t there, especially the portions focused on AIDS. Even I had forgotten how terrifying that time period was, and I was there for the 90s portion of it.
I could have done without all of the bits related to teaching and Vassar, but really loved the vignettes about living in NYC, going out, dating, the excitement and terror or moving there, and the energy that is just not available anywhere else. There were also a lot of fun peeks in to the publishing world, which is it’s own microcosm of New York.
I could have done without all of the bits related to teaching and Vassar, but really loved the vignettes about living in NYC, going out, dating, the excitement and terror or moving there, and the energy that is just not available anywhere else. There were also a lot of fun peeks in to the publishing world, which is it’s own microcosm of New York.
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October 20, 2025FINALLY finished. this was hard to get through and super long. i think it’s a great time capsule of a certain white, middle class angle of the new york gay scene during the aids crisis. but my god — why become a professor if you don’t like undergraduates! the amount of complaining about college students protesting/college students having feelings and emotions about certain writers and works of literature… so insufferable! and the gay conservatism was almost too much.
June 20, 2025
Riveting diaries of the 1980s and early '90s New York literary scene -- and, running parallel, the author's experience surviving the AIDS epidemic. The book begins with Mallon's ex-boyfriend, with whom he is still very much in love, becoming ill, and the trauma of his swiftly approaching death and Mallon's own exposure results in a very clear case of emotional and sexual trauma, depicted here more plainly and clearly than I have perhaps ever seen it.
Meanwhile, however, there are two other threads: Mallon rising through the dishily described book and magazine publishing scenes (were there cameos by people I know? Yes) and Mallon's consistently and increasingly baffling politics. He labels himself a social liberal and foreign policy conservative, but it's clear he's nowhere near as socially liberal as he thinks, and it's mind-boggling to watch him tie himself into knots to justify all the contradictions inherent in being a gay Republican (is he also Catholic? Yes). This is a man who weeps over friends and lovers lost to AIDS and over the death of Richard Nixon -- like??? Bro.
Anyway, this did not make reading his diaries any less fascinating -- especially knowing that Mallon finally broke with the Republican party in 2016; thank god Trump, at least, was a bridge too far. But I did shake my head and internally say bro a lot. And then teeheed at Mallon going somewhere or speaking with someone I know, only a version from forty years ago...
Meanwhile, however, there are two other threads: Mallon rising through the dishily described book and magazine publishing scenes (were there cameos by people I know? Yes) and Mallon's consistently and increasingly baffling politics. He labels himself a social liberal and foreign policy conservative, but it's clear he's nowhere near as socially liberal as he thinks, and it's mind-boggling to watch him tie himself into knots to justify all the contradictions inherent in being a gay Republican (is he also Catholic? Yes). This is a man who weeps over friends and lovers lost to AIDS and over the death of Richard Nixon -- like??? Bro.
Anyway, this did not make reading his diaries any less fascinating -- especially knowing that Mallon finally broke with the Republican party in 2016; thank god Trump, at least, was a bridge too far. But I did shake my head and internally say bro a lot. And then teeheed at Mallon going somewhere or speaking with someone I know, only a version from forty years ago...
December 15, 2025
I hate to sound like a name dropper, but I’ve known Tom Mallon for years, though mostly by snail mail and e-mail. My memory is that we met in the early eighties, when our literary agents occupied the same building. We subsequently reviewed books for the same newspapers (especially for an editor named Bob Wilson, who was first at the Washington Post, then USA Today) and met several times at the National Book Critics Circle meeting in New York, where I would often hang around Bob to get a free dinner (all the publishers wanted to pay for his food). One time Tom was at that dinner. Years later, he gave me a blurb for a novel that everyone else treated as radioactive, and when I lost my agent—by which time he was the literary editor of GQ—he was tireless in helping me search for a new one, an endless process that anyone else would have given up on long before he did. Through the years I’ve read and enjoyed much of his work, and I reviewed what came to be his breakthrough novel. But it was another review that put that novel over the top.
This selection from Mallon’s diaries traces a thrilling story, of a young man not yet tenured at Vassar, who decides to move from Poughkeepsie to a crummy apartment in New York just because he loves the city, has ambitions as a writer, and is gay, and New York is where the action is. It’s also true that he’s moved during the height of the AIDS crisis, and a previous lover—who had been the love of his life—has contracted AIDS and is dying. It’s hard to remember that time and that situation, but no one was certain what behaviors spread the disease (though people had their suspicions), no one knew what the incubation period was for the virus, or if everyone who contracted it would grow ill; people both wanted and didn’t want to know their status. Mallon opted not to get tested, as most people did at the time. So he was throwing himself into New York gay life while trying to be safe, every now and then slipping up a little. Maybe. That was the way things were at the time.
Mallon’s first book—the one he’d just sold when I met him in the agent’s office—was, famously, about diaries, A Book of One’s Own. While I’ve kept journals for many years—jottings of self-analysis or, more often, about writing projects (the analysis turned into writing projects)—I’ve never wanted to keep a diary of daily activities. Mallon has done so for years, and these brief excerpts from his diary read like a biography, also a history of the times. Reading them was like looking back at my own life. Mallon’s first book did well and marked him as a nonfiction writer, though his real ambition was as a novelist. He also just wanted a career as a writer, and to get away from dealing with the Vassar undergrads, as smart as they may have been (one student, who was signing up for a class in which she would read Shakespeare, Milton, and Spenser, asked if there would be a lot of poetry to read).
His publisher suggested a book on plagiarism, and he took that project on, eventually became an authority on the subject, though his real interest, at the time, was a novel he had already written a draft of, and which would eventually be published as Arts and Sciences. I had the feeling as I read these entries that the plagiarism book was a kind of albatross in his life; he kept working on it, but his heart wasn’t in it.
In the meantime, he was meeting men in a variety of places, often gay bars, which were plentiful in Manhattan. I’ve almost never been part of the dating scene, much less the pick-up-in-a-bar scene, and I was stunned at how easy it was for him to make dates to come back to his place (though he was and is good looking, and a relaxed easy conversationalist; Bob Wilson once called him “the most charming man in New York”). It was once he was in bed that the problems began, trying to be passionate but also safe, figuring out where to draw that line. From the start he was looking for someone to spend his life with, and there were a number of brief infatuations that didn’t work out (it got to a point where I could see the problems coming, and would think, no, Tom, not this guy). But when he did finally find the man to whom this book is dedicated, William Gene Bodenshatz, he didn’t waver, and neither did the man he called Billy. They got together and stayed together, though the whole thing about where to live and work became a problem, as it tends to in New York.
Erica Jong once said that a writer’s two occupational hazards are paranoia and insomnia; when a writer is trying to establish a career as a writer, he’s dependent on reviews to an extraordinary degree (and though Mallon generally got good reviews, his first two novels got bad ones in, of all places, the New York Times). My favorite moment in the book is when, after he’d just gotten that first bad Times review, instead of cowering and retreating to Vassar (by that time he’d gotten tenure), he said the hell with it, I’m sick of the office politics, I’m going to resign from Vassar and make a living as a New York writer. It was a bold move, in a place where the rents are high and there are all kinds of people trying to make it. But he did make it. He was actually established long before his breakthrough as a novelist (and probably before he knew it).
Those first two novels are among my favorites, both not necessarily autobiographical but at least reflecting his life; Arts and Sciences focuses on a grad student at Harvard who is realizing he’s gay; Aurora 7 concerned the space program, a lifelong interest of Mallon’s and another area where he became a nonfiction authority. But his breakthrough came because of a nonfiction project that didn’t work out. He’d been thinking of a biography of John Wilkes Booth when he heard that another writer was doing one and would probably be out with it before he would. He gradually became interested in another story from the same period, about the young married couple who had been sitting in the box with Lincoln when he was assassinated. To say the least, that moment had a major impact on their lives. Mallon began focusing on them.
Sometime during that period, the editor at GQ, where Mallon had done some writing, asked him to suggest someone as its literary editor, and Mallon said, how about me? It was three days of work a week, paid a good salary, and—coincidentally—put him in touch with any number of writers, editors, and agents. That place wound up having its own office politics, of course, but he did an excellent job, eventually writing a monthly column called Doubting Thomas and assigning reviews and other pieces. Most notably, around the fall of ’92, he suggested that they bump Christian Laettner from their next cover and feature Clinton and Gore instead. They would need an important writer for the accompanying article, one unafraid of controversy, and they picked . . . Gore Vidal, the most notable American writer of American historical novels. While working with the man (who seemed reasonable as long as you paid him extravagantly and didn’t make many changes in what he’d written), Mallon asked where Vidal thought he should start his new novel, and the answer Vidal gave is a story I’ve told to many a writer and writer’s class. I won’t give it away, but the point is to begin with a compelling event. (As Reynolds Price once told us, you don’t need to start every story, “’Rape!’ screamed the Duchess,” but find a way to grab the reader’s attention).
In terms of these diaries, I knew where Mallon would stop. Bob Wilson had asked me to review this historical novel, Henry and Clara, and said, as he always did, “He’s our friend, and you know he writes for us, but don’t let that influence what you say.” He meant that, but I loved the novel, and could see that it was a major breakthrough, but a slightly more notable reviewer saw that too. John Updike gave the book a major review in the New Yorker, having read all of Mallon’s work, and called him “one of the most important novelists writing in this country today.” It was one of those moments when an artist’s whole life has changed. And it makes a wonderful ending to a book about a young man arriving in New York at age 24 looking for love and a career. He finds both.
That having been said, I’d be happy to read the next ten years of diaries. And ten after that.
www.davidguy.org
This selection from Mallon’s diaries traces a thrilling story, of a young man not yet tenured at Vassar, who decides to move from Poughkeepsie to a crummy apartment in New York just because he loves the city, has ambitions as a writer, and is gay, and New York is where the action is. It’s also true that he’s moved during the height of the AIDS crisis, and a previous lover—who had been the love of his life—has contracted AIDS and is dying. It’s hard to remember that time and that situation, but no one was certain what behaviors spread the disease (though people had their suspicions), no one knew what the incubation period was for the virus, or if everyone who contracted it would grow ill; people both wanted and didn’t want to know their status. Mallon opted not to get tested, as most people did at the time. So he was throwing himself into New York gay life while trying to be safe, every now and then slipping up a little. Maybe. That was the way things were at the time.
Mallon’s first book—the one he’d just sold when I met him in the agent’s office—was, famously, about diaries, A Book of One’s Own. While I’ve kept journals for many years—jottings of self-analysis or, more often, about writing projects (the analysis turned into writing projects)—I’ve never wanted to keep a diary of daily activities. Mallon has done so for years, and these brief excerpts from his diary read like a biography, also a history of the times. Reading them was like looking back at my own life. Mallon’s first book did well and marked him as a nonfiction writer, though his real ambition was as a novelist. He also just wanted a career as a writer, and to get away from dealing with the Vassar undergrads, as smart as they may have been (one student, who was signing up for a class in which she would read Shakespeare, Milton, and Spenser, asked if there would be a lot of poetry to read).
His publisher suggested a book on plagiarism, and he took that project on, eventually became an authority on the subject, though his real interest, at the time, was a novel he had already written a draft of, and which would eventually be published as Arts and Sciences. I had the feeling as I read these entries that the plagiarism book was a kind of albatross in his life; he kept working on it, but his heart wasn’t in it.
In the meantime, he was meeting men in a variety of places, often gay bars, which were plentiful in Manhattan. I’ve almost never been part of the dating scene, much less the pick-up-in-a-bar scene, and I was stunned at how easy it was for him to make dates to come back to his place (though he was and is good looking, and a relaxed easy conversationalist; Bob Wilson once called him “the most charming man in New York”). It was once he was in bed that the problems began, trying to be passionate but also safe, figuring out where to draw that line. From the start he was looking for someone to spend his life with, and there were a number of brief infatuations that didn’t work out (it got to a point where I could see the problems coming, and would think, no, Tom, not this guy). But when he did finally find the man to whom this book is dedicated, William Gene Bodenshatz, he didn’t waver, and neither did the man he called Billy. They got together and stayed together, though the whole thing about where to live and work became a problem, as it tends to in New York.
Erica Jong once said that a writer’s two occupational hazards are paranoia and insomnia; when a writer is trying to establish a career as a writer, he’s dependent on reviews to an extraordinary degree (and though Mallon generally got good reviews, his first two novels got bad ones in, of all places, the New York Times). My favorite moment in the book is when, after he’d just gotten that first bad Times review, instead of cowering and retreating to Vassar (by that time he’d gotten tenure), he said the hell with it, I’m sick of the office politics, I’m going to resign from Vassar and make a living as a New York writer. It was a bold move, in a place where the rents are high and there are all kinds of people trying to make it. But he did make it. He was actually established long before his breakthrough as a novelist (and probably before he knew it).
Those first two novels are among my favorites, both not necessarily autobiographical but at least reflecting his life; Arts and Sciences focuses on a grad student at Harvard who is realizing he’s gay; Aurora 7 concerned the space program, a lifelong interest of Mallon’s and another area where he became a nonfiction authority. But his breakthrough came because of a nonfiction project that didn’t work out. He’d been thinking of a biography of John Wilkes Booth when he heard that another writer was doing one and would probably be out with it before he would. He gradually became interested in another story from the same period, about the young married couple who had been sitting in the box with Lincoln when he was assassinated. To say the least, that moment had a major impact on their lives. Mallon began focusing on them.
Sometime during that period, the editor at GQ, where Mallon had done some writing, asked him to suggest someone as its literary editor, and Mallon said, how about me? It was three days of work a week, paid a good salary, and—coincidentally—put him in touch with any number of writers, editors, and agents. That place wound up having its own office politics, of course, but he did an excellent job, eventually writing a monthly column called Doubting Thomas and assigning reviews and other pieces. Most notably, around the fall of ’92, he suggested that they bump Christian Laettner from their next cover and feature Clinton and Gore instead. They would need an important writer for the accompanying article, one unafraid of controversy, and they picked . . . Gore Vidal, the most notable American writer of American historical novels. While working with the man (who seemed reasonable as long as you paid him extravagantly and didn’t make many changes in what he’d written), Mallon asked where Vidal thought he should start his new novel, and the answer Vidal gave is a story I’ve told to many a writer and writer’s class. I won’t give it away, but the point is to begin with a compelling event. (As Reynolds Price once told us, you don’t need to start every story, “’Rape!’ screamed the Duchess,” but find a way to grab the reader’s attention).
In terms of these diaries, I knew where Mallon would stop. Bob Wilson had asked me to review this historical novel, Henry and Clara, and said, as he always did, “He’s our friend, and you know he writes for us, but don’t let that influence what you say.” He meant that, but I loved the novel, and could see that it was a major breakthrough, but a slightly more notable reviewer saw that too. John Updike gave the book a major review in the New Yorker, having read all of Mallon’s work, and called him “one of the most important novelists writing in this country today.” It was one of those moments when an artist’s whole life has changed. And it makes a wonderful ending to a book about a young man arriving in New York at age 24 looking for love and a career. He finds both.
That having been said, I’d be happy to read the next ten years of diaries. And ten after that.
www.davidguy.org
July 6, 2025
In recent years, Mallon's novels have been some of my favorite reads; he does tons of research and then invents narratives based on the cursory history of his historical characters. And if you don't know his name, many know his work now because of the tv version of "Fellow Travelers."
This book is different because it is his diary entries from the years 83 to 94. I wondered, as I read, how much he had edited them for publication. The NYT called him a "nice" man which I assume is true, but that doesn't mean that his observations don't contain some vinegar at times. He seems to only have disdain for another favorite writer of mine, David Leavitt, who, Mallon writes, has a very weak handshake although his description is much funnier. It is never really clear to me why he doesn't like Leavitt, although I wonder if there is jealousy since Leavitt was a "hot" writer then. Mallon is gleeful when Stephen Spender accuses Leavitt of plagiarism.
Mallon is two decades older than I, so the last years of his diary overlap with my moving to the city. Some of the fascination of the diaries is admittedly recognizing some of the names and realizing that worlds, especially gay worlds, often collide. Although I am more liberal than Mallon, I try not to be stubborn when observable facts contradict my fixed beliefs. Mallon, at times, seems reluctant to accept that his political views overlap with a world that at least legally and ideologically is at odds with being gay in America. So there is a fascinating tension as he tries to explain to himself why he maintains certain world views and admiration for famous political leaders despite his orientation.
The overarching tension of the book is Mallon's fear of contracting AIDS. I was relieved when he was negative because of my fondness for him developed through reading this journals and his various novels. And I was happy that he finally found love with Bill although he admits to slipping in his fidelity several times over the years. But he and his partner Bill make peace and continue their relationship. I volunteered with GMHC when I first moved to the city and met so many men who had no contact with their biological family. Mallon is luckier because he and his lovely mother have a loving relationship helped along by his partner Bill.
If you like Mallon's writing or are interested in the world of publishing and writing during this era, you will definitely enjoy this book.
This book is different because it is his diary entries from the years 83 to 94. I wondered, as I read, how much he had edited them for publication. The NYT called him a "nice" man which I assume is true, but that doesn't mean that his observations don't contain some vinegar at times. He seems to only have disdain for another favorite writer of mine, David Leavitt, who, Mallon writes, has a very weak handshake although his description is much funnier. It is never really clear to me why he doesn't like Leavitt, although I wonder if there is jealousy since Leavitt was a "hot" writer then. Mallon is gleeful when Stephen Spender accuses Leavitt of plagiarism.
Mallon is two decades older than I, so the last years of his diary overlap with my moving to the city. Some of the fascination of the diaries is admittedly recognizing some of the names and realizing that worlds, especially gay worlds, often collide. Although I am more liberal than Mallon, I try not to be stubborn when observable facts contradict my fixed beliefs. Mallon, at times, seems reluctant to accept that his political views overlap with a world that at least legally and ideologically is at odds with being gay in America. So there is a fascinating tension as he tries to explain to himself why he maintains certain world views and admiration for famous political leaders despite his orientation.
The overarching tension of the book is Mallon's fear of contracting AIDS. I was relieved when he was negative because of my fondness for him developed through reading this journals and his various novels. And I was happy that he finally found love with Bill although he admits to slipping in his fidelity several times over the years. But he and his partner Bill make peace and continue their relationship. I volunteered with GMHC when I first moved to the city and met so many men who had no contact with their biological family. Mallon is luckier because he and his lovely mother have a loving relationship helped along by his partner Bill.
If you like Mallon's writing or are interested in the world of publishing and writing during this era, you will definitely enjoy this book.
February 13, 2026
The Very Heart of It: New York Diaries, 1983–1994 by Thomas Mallon is an intimate and absorbing chronicle of a writer’s coming of age during one of the most dynamic and devastating periods in modern cultural history. Drawn from his personal journals, the book captures the rhythm of daily life in New York while tracing Mallon’s evolution from an unknown academic to an emerging literary voice.
The diaries reveal the energy and contradictions of the era an exciting literary scene filled with ambition, artistic discovery, and intellectual exchange, set against the shadow of the AIDS crisis that profoundly affected the city and the people within it. Mallon’s reflections are immediate and unguarded, offering readers a rare window into both his private world and the broader cultural moment unfolding around him.
What makes the book especially compelling is its emotional honesty. Mallon records not only his professional milestones his growing presence in literary circles, his editorial work, and the success of his early writing but also the personal experiences that shaped him: relationships, grief, fear, and the search for meaning. The result is a deeply human portrait that balances vulnerability with sharp observation.
More than just a collection of diary entries, The Very Heart of It stands as a historical document and a literary keepsake. It preserves the texture of a vanished New York and captures the formation of a writer’s identity in real time, making it both poignant and enduring.
The diaries reveal the energy and contradictions of the era an exciting literary scene filled with ambition, artistic discovery, and intellectual exchange, set against the shadow of the AIDS crisis that profoundly affected the city and the people within it. Mallon’s reflections are immediate and unguarded, offering readers a rare window into both his private world and the broader cultural moment unfolding around him.
What makes the book especially compelling is its emotional honesty. Mallon records not only his professional milestones his growing presence in literary circles, his editorial work, and the success of his early writing but also the personal experiences that shaped him: relationships, grief, fear, and the search for meaning. The result is a deeply human portrait that balances vulnerability with sharp observation.
More than just a collection of diary entries, The Very Heart of It stands as a historical document and a literary keepsake. It preserves the texture of a vanished New York and captures the formation of a writer’s identity in real time, making it both poignant and enduring.
July 4, 2025
Thomas Mallon was not someone I was familiar with prior to having a friend recommend these diaries to me, but I appreciated this famous author having the courage to expose his unfiltered diaries living in NYC as a gay man during the AIDS crisis. They showcased the fear and uncertainty that constituted life during this period, a constant shadow during an otherwise joyous time of burgeoning professional success. I liked the NYC tidbits. I also found myself fascinated by what seems like a curious anomaly today -- the gay neoconservative. When I saw Mallon left the Republican Party in 2016, this made more sense to me. I couldn't tell whether I was comforted or concerned by the presence of some themes that seem like relatively modern phenomena (political scandal, the changing landscape of NYC, climate change.) Chalk it up to the luxury of being a child in the 1990s, I guess. These diaries were a bit of a slog to get through at times (592 pages is a lot of journal entries), but I enjoyed the journey.
November 4, 2025
It could have been a fulfilling book because Mallon's observations and put-downs reach some Oscar Wilde heights in their cleverness. Instead, the tone is more hyper-bitchy, judgmental and downright self-pitying in a way that is a shock. Even the moments devoted to mourning the victims of AIDS falls into a more "what am I going to do if it happens to me?" form of hysteria. The capturing of 1980s NYC environments evolving into the 90s is the best material--and you wish there more of it. Even the name-dropping about Jackie O. and other celebs or the insults directed at popular entertainment, excepting Bette Midler and musical theater, become fatiguing. The conservative politics and Mallon's support of Reagan lose their shock value after a while. The chapters start to blur into one another about Mallon's incredible amounts of literary success--and it's all deserved. His books are fantastic. But this memoir about such a turbulent, colorful time to be in New York keeps so many of the city's people at a distance.
January 3, 2026
Warm and Compelling
I have to confess a certain bias; Tom Mallon was my professor at Vassar and he was wonderful then too. And that early bit about the character sketches of him? That was my idea! But the book does not disappoint. Full of wit and warmth, and starring a panoply of literary, political and other stars, it is never dull and frequently poignant and inspiring. He provides insight to the terrifyingly personal threat of HIV every gay man had to live with in the 80s, watching friends and lovers alike fall while society looked away. It’s just a very satisfying read and I could have kept reading. I want to know the rest.
I have to confess a certain bias; Tom Mallon was my professor at Vassar and he was wonderful then too. And that early bit about the character sketches of him? That was my idea! But the book does not disappoint. Full of wit and warmth, and starring a panoply of literary, political and other stars, it is never dull and frequently poignant and inspiring. He provides insight to the terrifyingly personal threat of HIV every gay man had to live with in the 80s, watching friends and lovers alike fall while society looked away. It’s just a very satisfying read and I could have kept reading. I want to know the rest.
June 23, 2025
I've been in a memoir kind of mode this month... I guess? Thanks to aaknopf, I just finished reading Thomas Mallon's The Very Heart of It. What a read!
There is such a vulnerability in letting the public at large read your diary entries, but Mallon lets us in and opens up a time capsule from the 80s and 90s for us to explore.
Of course, we ride along on the journey with him and his career. You'll find familiar names and mentions of fun moments in time. I smiled and chuckled throughout.
Now, I am not intentionally quoting the title here, but the heart of this book is living through the AIDS epidemic. It's such an important read to be alongside his inner most thoughts and fears and sorrows while he is in the middle of it all. I think it's essential reading, especially for younger LGBTQ+ people, to learn queer history.
I'm left with just wanting to say thanks to Thomas for sharing this all with us.
There is such a vulnerability in letting the public at large read your diary entries, but Mallon lets us in and opens up a time capsule from the 80s and 90s for us to explore.
Of course, we ride along on the journey with him and his career. You'll find familiar names and mentions of fun moments in time. I smiled and chuckled throughout.
Now, I am not intentionally quoting the title here, but the heart of this book is living through the AIDS epidemic. It's such an important read to be alongside his inner most thoughts and fears and sorrows while he is in the middle of it all. I think it's essential reading, especially for younger LGBTQ+ people, to learn queer history.
I'm left with just wanting to say thanks to Thomas for sharing this all with us.
December 15, 2025
It is such an act of literary generosity for Mallon to share his personal experiences and insights, the literal output of diary content. It’s risky, as we get it all, mostly poignant and admirable, sometimes cloyingly immature. I was most fascinated and sympathetic to his clenching and painful memories of being a gay man in NYC during the scariest early years of AIDS. I would happily keep reading his diaries to learn more about his deepening success as a fiction writer…and his continuing years of couplehood with Bill.
November 20, 2025
Beautifully written and love the slice of life nature of these diary entries. I'm always super curious about the little details, and do want to hear Mallon's idle gossip about celebrities like Barbra Streisand. Tracking the spread of AIDs and how it colors everything in his life, including falling in love, was heart-breaking.
That being said, if I knew this author in real life (or if god forbid, he'd been my college professor), I would hate him.
That being said, if I knew this author in real life (or if god forbid, he'd been my college professor), I would hate him.
September 17, 2025
reading mallon's memoir is so rewarding and educating. also kinda above and beyond from that of his times. i can actually sense how much of a big deal politics and the aids pandemic and advocacy all were. took me 3 weeks to finish but so worth the time
November 10, 2025
"We did about 10 blocks of the 3rd Avenue Street Fair after that. A big crush of people looking at nothing at lal. ASPCA booths and bad art and eating shish kabob. the city at its most suburban."
December 11, 2025
An amazing trip down memory lane (not all happy memories) of a particular time in NYC. A new genre to me, diary is a fascinating way to get to know someone.
December 21, 2025
A brilliant, rich and brave resource for anyone interested in the day to day life of middle-class gay intellectualism/writers in New York during the 80s and start of the 90s.
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