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Christodora
In this vivid and compelling novel, Tim Murphy follows a diverse set of characters whose fates intertwine in an iconic building in Manhattan’s East Village, the Christodora. The Christodora is home to Milly and Jared, a privileged young couple with artistic ambitions.
Their neighbor, Hector, a Puerto Rican gay man who was once a celebrated AIDS activist but is now a lonely addict, becomes connected to Milly and Jared’s lives in ways none of them can anticipate. Meanwhile, Milly and Jared’s adopted son Mateo grows to see the opportunity for both self-realization and oblivion that New York offers. As the junkies and protesters of the 1980's give way to the hipsters of the 2000's and they, in turn, to the wealthy residents of the crowded, glass-towered city of the 2020's, enormous changes rock the personal lives of Milly and Jared and the constellation of people around them.
Moving kaleidoscopically from the Tompkins Square Riots and attempts by activists to galvanize a true response to the AIDS epidemic, to the New York City of the future, Christodora recounts the heartbreak wrought by AIDS, illustrates the allure and destructive power of hard drugs, and brings to life the ever-changing city itself.
Their neighbor, Hector, a Puerto Rican gay man who was once a celebrated AIDS activist but is now a lonely addict, becomes connected to Milly and Jared’s lives in ways none of them can anticipate. Meanwhile, Milly and Jared’s adopted son Mateo grows to see the opportunity for both self-realization and oblivion that New York offers. As the junkies and protesters of the 1980's give way to the hipsters of the 2000's and they, in turn, to the wealthy residents of the crowded, glass-towered city of the 2020's, enormous changes rock the personal lives of Milly and Jared and the constellation of people around them.
Moving kaleidoscopically from the Tompkins Square Riots and attempts by activists to galvanize a true response to the AIDS epidemic, to the New York City of the future, Christodora recounts the heartbreak wrought by AIDS, illustrates the allure and destructive power of hard drugs, and brings to life the ever-changing city itself.
496 pages, Hardcover
First published August 2, 2016
352 people are currently reading
13132 people want to read
About the author
Tim Murphy
6 books414 followersTim Murphy is the author of the novels "Correspondents" and "Christodora," both published by Grove Atlantic. "Christodora" was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal. Under the name Timothy Murphy, he is also the author of the 1990s novels "Getting Off Clean" and "The Breeders Box." He has been for nearly 20 years a journalist focusing mostly on HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ issues, for publications including the New York Times, New York magazine, Out magazine, the Nation, POZ magazine, and for the magazines of the ACLU and Lambda Legal.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 946 reviews
July 12, 2020
5 "challenging, transformative, compassionate" stars!!!
2016 Honorable Mention Read with High Distinction
This has been my most challenging read of the year. I hope to explain in a few paragraphs why this is so.
When I started to read this book and at times throughout the book I would slam into ambivalence, denial, disgust, and remorse. As these are all uncomfortable emotions, defense mechanisms would pop up. I wanted to stop reading so many times and throw the book away but I would return again and again and each time I returned the uncomfortable emotions would lessen and be replaced with layers of understanding, compassion and muted hope.
This book challenged my politics, my mode of being, my ideas of divine retribution, my beliefs in karma, dharma and samsara. I had to go deep inside and look at my own internalized stigmas, my cocooning from many painful aspects. Anger at those characters in the book that repeatedly made poor life decisions and anger at myself for always being ultra-cautious in the way I have lived my own precious life.
I will be honest. I did not relate or like any of the characters in the book (except for Ysabel whom I think I yearned to save). I would not choose any of them as friends or people that I would really like to know. Some were self-destructive, others overly impulsive, many were self-centred and most were incredibly navel-gazing. They were all hurt and spinning in circles and goddamit made efforts too little and too late to change. However their struggles, illnesses, addictions and traumas were real. Trying to survive in a dog eat dog world. Hurting loved ones left, right and centre but continuing on to fight systematic injustices, procreating, using drugs, having brunch, going to jail, stealing, using, abusing but also creating and noticing beauty, making sacrifices, unconditional loving, caring and supporting way beyond the call of duty. These were real flesh and blood people despite my antipathy towards many of them.
This is when the lightbulb went off. It does not matter one bit that I would not choose to have them in my life. What matters is that they are fellow human beings with very real and in some cases lethal challenges and although my struggles may have been different - we are the same. Compassion is where its at and my heart melted. I was no longer afraid of their drug addictions, sex addictions, mental illnesses, poverty, AIDS or existential nihilism. These are aspects within all of us- male, female, gay, bi, straight, black, white, brown and everything in between.
Mr. Murphy....this is a most remarkable achievement and I am glad I took this challenge. Not only did I learn and feel so much but I grew in my humanity, my self-knowledge and may have even slightly adjusted how I am and will be in the world.
A difficult but important experience!!!
2016 Honorable Mention Read with High Distinction
This has been my most challenging read of the year. I hope to explain in a few paragraphs why this is so.
When I started to read this book and at times throughout the book I would slam into ambivalence, denial, disgust, and remorse. As these are all uncomfortable emotions, defense mechanisms would pop up. I wanted to stop reading so many times and throw the book away but I would return again and again and each time I returned the uncomfortable emotions would lessen and be replaced with layers of understanding, compassion and muted hope.
This book challenged my politics, my mode of being, my ideas of divine retribution, my beliefs in karma, dharma and samsara. I had to go deep inside and look at my own internalized stigmas, my cocooning from many painful aspects. Anger at those characters in the book that repeatedly made poor life decisions and anger at myself for always being ultra-cautious in the way I have lived my own precious life.
I will be honest. I did not relate or like any of the characters in the book (except for Ysabel whom I think I yearned to save). I would not choose any of them as friends or people that I would really like to know. Some were self-destructive, others overly impulsive, many were self-centred and most were incredibly navel-gazing. They were all hurt and spinning in circles and goddamit made efforts too little and too late to change. However their struggles, illnesses, addictions and traumas were real. Trying to survive in a dog eat dog world. Hurting loved ones left, right and centre but continuing on to fight systematic injustices, procreating, using drugs, having brunch, going to jail, stealing, using, abusing but also creating and noticing beauty, making sacrifices, unconditional loving, caring and supporting way beyond the call of duty. These were real flesh and blood people despite my antipathy towards many of them.
This is when the lightbulb went off. It does not matter one bit that I would not choose to have them in my life. What matters is that they are fellow human beings with very real and in some cases lethal challenges and although my struggles may have been different - we are the same. Compassion is where its at and my heart melted. I was no longer afraid of their drug addictions, sex addictions, mental illnesses, poverty, AIDS or existential nihilism. These are aspects within all of us- male, female, gay, bi, straight, black, white, brown and everything in between.
Mr. Murphy....this is a most remarkable achievement and I am glad I took this challenge. Not only did I learn and feel so much but I grew in my humanity, my self-knowledge and may have even slightly adjusted how I am and will be in the world.
A difficult but important experience!!!
September 12, 2017
This is on sale on Audible until 9/17! This played out great via audio!
"Christodora" by Tim Murphy is a brilliant debut novel that spans decades, from 1981 until 2021. It deals with AIDS, drugs, more drugs, rehab, mental illness, homosexuality, adoption, art and many other topics. The novel is set mainly in New York City.
I'm giving this book 4.5 Stars rounded up to 5. I vacillated from a strong 5 to 4 and back to 5 Stars again in the last part of the book.
This novel is everything people are saying it is, so believe the hype! This is supposedly being made into a limited TV series. Check out this article about it here: http://deadline.com/2016/08/christodo... I think that it will work well this way because it is long and has many characters. All of the characters are interconnected in one way or the other. Murphy does a phenomenal job putting this story together.
The Christodora is a building in Manhattan. The novel is centered around Jared, Milly and their adopted son, Mateo. In the beginning of the novel Jarod's father purchases an apartment at The Christodora for 90 thousand dollars in the late 1970's.
This book is not only a great novel, but it is also a very important novel because it shows how people fought and advocated against the AIDS pandemic and what horror and sadness that it inflicted upon people. The sadness of the battle, specifically in New York City, was abominable in the 1980's.
I listened to the audio version. It is fabulous! The story jumps around in time but the audio's brilliant use of multiple narrators made it easy to follow. Bravo to the entire cast! Each narrator was amazing in their own way. It's a heavy novel so be prepared. I actually had to take a day off from it. It is also over 17 hours long. It's well worth the time!
Highly Recommended!!!
"Christodora" by Tim Murphy is a brilliant debut novel that spans decades, from 1981 until 2021. It deals with AIDS, drugs, more drugs, rehab, mental illness, homosexuality, adoption, art and many other topics. The novel is set mainly in New York City.
I'm giving this book 4.5 Stars rounded up to 5. I vacillated from a strong 5 to 4 and back to 5 Stars again in the last part of the book.
This novel is everything people are saying it is, so believe the hype! This is supposedly being made into a limited TV series. Check out this article about it here: http://deadline.com/2016/08/christodo... I think that it will work well this way because it is long and has many characters. All of the characters are interconnected in one way or the other. Murphy does a phenomenal job putting this story together.
The Christodora is a building in Manhattan. The novel is centered around Jared, Milly and their adopted son, Mateo. In the beginning of the novel Jarod's father purchases an apartment at The Christodora for 90 thousand dollars in the late 1970's.
This book is not only a great novel, but it is also a very important novel because it shows how people fought and advocated against the AIDS pandemic and what horror and sadness that it inflicted upon people. The sadness of the battle, specifically in New York City, was abominable in the 1980's.
I listened to the audio version. It is fabulous! The story jumps around in time but the audio's brilliant use of multiple narrators made it easy to follow. Bravo to the entire cast! Each narrator was amazing in their own way. It's a heavy novel so be prepared. I actually had to take a day off from it. It is also over 17 hours long. It's well worth the time!
Highly Recommended!!!
June 26, 2020
Update: This was a fabulous read - it’s a $1.99 kindle special today! Just sharing. It’s a great price for it.
“You have it," she said.
"No, Millipede, you have it."
"Milly held the blueberry between her lips, leaned forward, and shared it with
Jarad--the two of them laughing as they each bit the berry to pull away their half, kissing all the while. The entire transaction took just seconds; they were
certainly not the kind of people to engage in ostentatious and drawn-out public
displays of affection."
Yet...other nearby snaky-disapproving-women in the diner, turned up noses up at their blueberry make-out romanticism.
Jared and Milly knew each other growing up- different private schools-- but it's in College where they fell in love. ( Both ending up at the same school in New York)
They both grew up on the upper side of New York.. But Jared's dad purchased
the old abandoned building, property of the city, "Christodora", wanting to revive the old neighborhood...( an area with memories for his father)...in the East Village of Manhattan.
Steven Traum, ( Jared's dad)...used the apartment he owned as his office for awhile until Jared graduated college. Then he and Milly moved it and made it their home.
And these were the innocent days.....
Christodora over looked a park .. The neighborhood attracted homeless people sleeping in the park, heroin shooters, artists. addicts, rockers, skinheads, activists.
Ragtime tents..bonfires...Bohemians ... also generation X types ...and even a young couple in love like Jared and Milly.. ( trying to raise a child in a very crazy environment).
Milly and Jared adopted Mateo. He was an orphan. When Mateo was just a small child
I worried about him living in Christodora. He got bit by a shepherd-pit one night .. men were coming and going all hours of the night from their friend, Hector's apt. The dog belonged to Hector. He was so stoned that night, his dog wasn't being cared for properly. Mateo survives the dog bit with minor injury.
We continue to watch Mateo grow up.
I couldn't help but laugh at how Mateo referred to his parents as a young adult:
Millimom and Jared-dad. The stage of his life when he was shopping in thrift stores
buying anything old ..or black...seemed to glorify the trendy-rebel look we are all so familiar with. ( rebel or not). Things 'do' get more serious...( really painful years of drugs, disconnect, rehab, horrific sadness of a broken family relationship when a young girl gets disowned by her family because she has AIDS.
I was reminded of the many people I knew in theater -- when our daughter was acting in Equity shows as a child with mostly adults. It was the saddest day, when I had to take my 11 year old daughter to a 'living-funeral' in the park for her director ...to say good-bye to him before he died.
One of the characters in the book - Hector - a gay man ..once so important and famous to the AIDS movement, became a meth addict. ...and I kept wanting to know
'why'? ..'what happened'? How did he find himself on completely the opposite
opposing team? He was an ACTIVIST...worked with the Clinton Administration in
helping getting medication to those who needed it. Hurts harder to see the educated - the fighters for the cause - turn into a drug addict. Just makes you realize addiction just isn't logical.
To be honest a couple of times...I just wanted to say..."well, fuck"... while reading this novel. And why not? I think it's a normal reaction. This is long book.. but I couldn't stop reading.
It's also one of the 'better' books written during these days - in New York City.
The characters were well developed. It was easy to imagine Millicent Heyman,
(Milly), her beauty - her persona - her vulnerability, her cynicism, her love.
Milly would often dream she was flying...
I loved what the author wrote describing her dream:
"She somersaulted languorously in the air, and then she sailed out the window,
six stories high, and into the warm city night. She watched their apartment recede
as she breaststroked her way higher and higher, until Manhattan grid emerged below
her and she was gently maneuvering her way around the corners of the buildings
fifteen, twenty stories high. Through windows, she saw the neighbors sleeping, turning fitfully--so drearily earthbound! Up here, above the city lights, the stars emerged. She stretched out her arms and wiggled her bare toes, her nightshirt flapping around her thighs, her black curls whipping across your eyes".
That's sooooo beautiful! .......
"The city twinkled beneath her, late-night cabs crisscrossing the grid-like 'dumb' toys she thought. ( lovely)
Thank you Grove Atlantic, Netgalley, and Tim Murphy...( heartbreaking -the AIDS
devastation--this story you wrote is intelligent, illuminating, and deeply humane.
“You have it," she said.
"No, Millipede, you have it."
"Milly held the blueberry between her lips, leaned forward, and shared it with
Jarad--the two of them laughing as they each bit the berry to pull away their half, kissing all the while. The entire transaction took just seconds; they were
certainly not the kind of people to engage in ostentatious and drawn-out public
displays of affection."
Yet...other nearby snaky-disapproving-women in the diner, turned up noses up at their blueberry make-out romanticism.
Jared and Milly knew each other growing up- different private schools-- but it's in College where they fell in love. ( Both ending up at the same school in New York)
They both grew up on the upper side of New York.. But Jared's dad purchased
the old abandoned building, property of the city, "Christodora", wanting to revive the old neighborhood...( an area with memories for his father)...in the East Village of Manhattan.
Steven Traum, ( Jared's dad)...used the apartment he owned as his office for awhile until Jared graduated college. Then he and Milly moved it and made it their home.
And these were the innocent days.....
Christodora over looked a park .. The neighborhood attracted homeless people sleeping in the park, heroin shooters, artists. addicts, rockers, skinheads, activists.
Ragtime tents..bonfires...Bohemians ... also generation X types ...and even a young couple in love like Jared and Milly.. ( trying to raise a child in a very crazy environment).
Milly and Jared adopted Mateo. He was an orphan. When Mateo was just a small child
I worried about him living in Christodora. He got bit by a shepherd-pit one night .. men were coming and going all hours of the night from their friend, Hector's apt. The dog belonged to Hector. He was so stoned that night, his dog wasn't being cared for properly. Mateo survives the dog bit with minor injury.
We continue to watch Mateo grow up.
I couldn't help but laugh at how Mateo referred to his parents as a young adult:
Millimom and Jared-dad. The stage of his life when he was shopping in thrift stores
buying anything old ..or black...seemed to glorify the trendy-rebel look we are all so familiar with. ( rebel or not). Things 'do' get more serious...( really painful years of drugs, disconnect, rehab, horrific sadness of a broken family relationship when a young girl gets disowned by her family because she has AIDS.
I was reminded of the many people I knew in theater -- when our daughter was acting in Equity shows as a child with mostly adults. It was the saddest day, when I had to take my 11 year old daughter to a 'living-funeral' in the park for her director ...to say good-bye to him before he died.
One of the characters in the book - Hector - a gay man ..once so important and famous to the AIDS movement, became a meth addict. ...and I kept wanting to know
'why'? ..'what happened'? How did he find himself on completely the opposite
opposing team? He was an ACTIVIST...worked with the Clinton Administration in
helping getting medication to those who needed it. Hurts harder to see the educated - the fighters for the cause - turn into a drug addict. Just makes you realize addiction just isn't logical.
To be honest a couple of times...I just wanted to say..."well, fuck"... while reading this novel. And why not? I think it's a normal reaction. This is long book.. but I couldn't stop reading.
It's also one of the 'better' books written during these days - in New York City.
The characters were well developed. It was easy to imagine Millicent Heyman,
(Milly), her beauty - her persona - her vulnerability, her cynicism, her love.
Milly would often dream she was flying...
I loved what the author wrote describing her dream:
"She somersaulted languorously in the air, and then she sailed out the window,
six stories high, and into the warm city night. She watched their apartment recede
as she breaststroked her way higher and higher, until Manhattan grid emerged below
her and she was gently maneuvering her way around the corners of the buildings
fifteen, twenty stories high. Through windows, she saw the neighbors sleeping, turning fitfully--so drearily earthbound! Up here, above the city lights, the stars emerged. She stretched out her arms and wiggled her bare toes, her nightshirt flapping around her thighs, her black curls whipping across your eyes".
That's sooooo beautiful! .......
"The city twinkled beneath her, late-night cabs crisscrossing the grid-like 'dumb' toys she thought. ( lovely)
Thank you Grove Atlantic, Netgalley, and Tim Murphy...( heartbreaking -the AIDS
devastation--this story you wrote is intelligent, illuminating, and deeply humane.
August 11, 2016
Gritty , graphic at times and sad . Sad as hell because it's about people whose lives have been broken by AIDS or by the debilitating effects of hard core drug addiction or by mental illness. This was not an easy book to read because even though it's a fictional depiction of the AIDS epidemic, you just know that there is truth here after reading the author's credentials as a writer on the subject (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...).
At first it almost had the feel of a book of connected short stories because it moves around in time and from character to character, spanning several decades from 1980's to 2021. But then it suddenly became one story of the relationships of a cast of characters, in particular Millie, a NYC born and raised artist and her adopted son, Mateo. These relationships are essentially what this story is about - relationships over time and how the times shaped them. It's about mothers and their children, about family and friendship, about love , art , the creative process , about who people are as individuals and as part of a couple - all of this with the AIDS epidemic and the courage of AIDS activists in the forefront.
There were moments when I was startled, stunned by things that happened here because they were so far removed from my own life experience, but that's what made this an amazing book - it took me there. The ending brought me to tears actually because in spite of all that went before, there was hope.
Thanks to Grove Atlantic/Grove Press and NetGalley.
At first it almost had the feel of a book of connected short stories because it moves around in time and from character to character, spanning several decades from 1980's to 2021. But then it suddenly became one story of the relationships of a cast of characters, in particular Millie, a NYC born and raised artist and her adopted son, Mateo. These relationships are essentially what this story is about - relationships over time and how the times shaped them. It's about mothers and their children, about family and friendship, about love , art , the creative process , about who people are as individuals and as part of a couple - all of this with the AIDS epidemic and the courage of AIDS activists in the forefront.
There were moments when I was startled, stunned by things that happened here because they were so far removed from my own life experience, but that's what made this an amazing book - it took me there. The ending brought me to tears actually because in spite of all that went before, there was hope.
Thanks to Grove Atlantic/Grove Press and NetGalley.
February 20, 2017
This book. This story. So vivid, emotional and real, it hurts. The sadness about disease; about family; about the complexity of relationships and the addictive nature and destruction drugs can have.
The christodora is a building. A structure with a history of tenants that spans decades. It's a sad and destructive era - one that is a reality that cut to the core. An era of drugs, unprotected sex, moments of pleasure turning into a life of regret. The HIV epidemic emerging and the damage it leaves in its wake. The people impacted. Milli and Jared. The couple whose lives are at the centre and the people who intersect with them.The future -in the child they adopt and the unfolding of it in a devastating and self-destructive path.
The writing - exquisite. Their lives told in vignettes. Both past and future giving us a full picture of a family who are deeply entrenched in the New York City grit. The hippiness, the coolness, the coldness. The sadness and the loneliness.
The themes tackled enormous: mental illness, disease, drug abuse, marital strains, sexual preferences, relationships. This delivered with an impactful, realistic and harsh punch. 5*****
The christodora is a building. A structure with a history of tenants that spans decades. It's a sad and destructive era - one that is a reality that cut to the core. An era of drugs, unprotected sex, moments of pleasure turning into a life of regret. The HIV epidemic emerging and the damage it leaves in its wake. The people impacted. Milli and Jared. The couple whose lives are at the centre and the people who intersect with them.The future -in the child they adopt and the unfolding of it in a devastating and self-destructive path.
The writing - exquisite. Their lives told in vignettes. Both past and future giving us a full picture of a family who are deeply entrenched in the New York City grit. The hippiness, the coolness, the coldness. The sadness and the loneliness.
The themes tackled enormous: mental illness, disease, drug abuse, marital strains, sexual preferences, relationships. This delivered with an impactful, realistic and harsh punch. 5*****
July 25, 2016
Finally, a 5 star book! Christodora has a lot of the things I love in a big sprawling novel. It has a great story, is anchored in an interesting historical context, has meaty strong characters and had me truly emotionally invested. The book spans approximately 40 years -- from 1980 to 2021 --and focuses on a group of interconnected characters primarily based in New York. The book's main focus is on Millie -- an artist living in New York -- and her adopted son Mateo -- whose mother died of AIDS when he was a few months old. The story jumps around in time from one character's perspective to another in a way that I loved -- it was like a maze or puzzle in which I was slowly led to understand how everything and everyone fit together. The backdrop to the story is the AIDS crisis -- many of the characters were activists or had AIDS or both. The devastating effects of addiction also plays an important role. But this isn't a preachy story -- it has some grittiness but mostly it feels like a genuine loving portrait of imperfect people in complex circumstances. It appears that this is Murphy's first novel -- hard to believe. The writing is not exceptional -- except for one chapter seen through the eyes of a character going through a manic phase -- but the writing is direct, strong and seamless which drew me right into the story. This qualifies as one of the best books I have read this year. Highly recommended. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance copy.
August 23, 2016
This work of fiction is not an easy read, but a reminder of what happened during a scary time in history when the world was troubled by the AIDS epidemic.
Inside the pages of CHRISTODORA the characters are flawed, the sex explicitly graphic, and the drug use overwhelming and deadly yet the story is moving and powerful in its message.
As pieces of several complicated lives come together; despite the lies that shock and hurt, despite the devastating pain of loss, we are thankfully left with a bit of happiness and hope.
November 23, 2021
This book unfolded on me like a puzzle. At first it was a confusing jumble of facts, then a frustrating, jumping muddle I couldn't seem to get my head around. But then, as the pieces started to knit together and as I started to see something evolve from the mass of parts, I began to enjoy the process of unpicking it. The parts melded into something satisfying and intriguing and suddenly I started to dread reaching the point where I’d have pieced it all together and completed the task. I eventually began to slow my reading in an attempt to elongate the experience, limiting my reading at night so that I could awake to start afresh in the morning.
It might be easiest to walk through my thoughts on this book as I experienced it. But I don’t want to give too much away, so I’ll be a little vague on the detail. On starting the book, I was initially convinced I’d be introduced to a multitude of characters who lived in some imaginary building in Manhattan. Wrong on both counts. The cast is relatively small (some of them don’t even reside in the Christodora building) and I discovered that not only does building itself exist but also some of the early events featured are based on actual documented events. Ok, so this could be one of those books that William Boyd writes where significant historical events are witnessed and touched by a group of invented characters? Well, sort of…
The next thing that struck me was that the time frame kept changing, jumping forward and back: the 1990’s then the 80’s then to the period post 2000. The shifts were sudden and I found it a bit disconcerting. I just couldn’t get into the flow of the book. Why was it bouncing round so much? But gradually this started to make sense; facts would reveal themselves seemingly randomly and then events would be explained by the next time shift. Clever. Intriguing. I started to enjoy this way of absorbing a story.
The main characters were now becoming familiar. Milly and Jared, a pair of artists who live in the Christodora and who decide to adopt a young boy, Mateo, who was left parentless when his mother died of AIDS. Milly’s mother, Ava, a feisty senior figure in ‘health’ who is frustrated by both her bosses and her own mental wellbeing. And Hector, a colourful AIDS activist who has links with all three in the course of the story. The writing reminded me of Franzen, in the way it chronicled the imperfect relationship between mother and daughter – sometimes wryly amusing and at other times bitingly honest. But no, wait a minute, now it feels like a Tom Wolfe novel as the scale and scope of the narrative begins to broaden out and expand beyond it’s initial parameters or akin to Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life as it brilliantly projects the feelings of the protagonists as they deal with the ups and downs of life and in the way relationships between friends are forensically examined. Ok, in my eyes it feels like a mix of all of these.
The story is alternatively enlightening, saddening and uplifting. It’s all here: explorations of sexuality and mental illness, brilliantly observed dialogue that brings the relationship between characters alive and a study of the stresses and strains of parenting and the angst and sorrow brought on by drug abuse and physical illness. At heart this book is a story inspired by the history of AIDS activism in America but it’s much more than that, it’s rich and absorbing in so many ways. I loved it, and I’m already missing waking up to read the next section each morning.
My thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for providing an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
It might be easiest to walk through my thoughts on this book as I experienced it. But I don’t want to give too much away, so I’ll be a little vague on the detail. On starting the book, I was initially convinced I’d be introduced to a multitude of characters who lived in some imaginary building in Manhattan. Wrong on both counts. The cast is relatively small (some of them don’t even reside in the Christodora building) and I discovered that not only does building itself exist but also some of the early events featured are based on actual documented events. Ok, so this could be one of those books that William Boyd writes where significant historical events are witnessed and touched by a group of invented characters? Well, sort of…
The next thing that struck me was that the time frame kept changing, jumping forward and back: the 1990’s then the 80’s then to the period post 2000. The shifts were sudden and I found it a bit disconcerting. I just couldn’t get into the flow of the book. Why was it bouncing round so much? But gradually this started to make sense; facts would reveal themselves seemingly randomly and then events would be explained by the next time shift. Clever. Intriguing. I started to enjoy this way of absorbing a story.
The main characters were now becoming familiar. Milly and Jared, a pair of artists who live in the Christodora and who decide to adopt a young boy, Mateo, who was left parentless when his mother died of AIDS. Milly’s mother, Ava, a feisty senior figure in ‘health’ who is frustrated by both her bosses and her own mental wellbeing. And Hector, a colourful AIDS activist who has links with all three in the course of the story. The writing reminded me of Franzen, in the way it chronicled the imperfect relationship between mother and daughter – sometimes wryly amusing and at other times bitingly honest. But no, wait a minute, now it feels like a Tom Wolfe novel as the scale and scope of the narrative begins to broaden out and expand beyond it’s initial parameters or akin to Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life as it brilliantly projects the feelings of the protagonists as they deal with the ups and downs of life and in the way relationships between friends are forensically examined. Ok, in my eyes it feels like a mix of all of these.
The story is alternatively enlightening, saddening and uplifting. It’s all here: explorations of sexuality and mental illness, brilliantly observed dialogue that brings the relationship between characters alive and a study of the stresses and strains of parenting and the angst and sorrow brought on by drug abuse and physical illness. At heart this book is a story inspired by the history of AIDS activism in America but it’s much more than that, it’s rich and absorbing in so many ways. I loved it, and I’m already missing waking up to read the next section each morning.
My thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for providing an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
October 29, 2016
I'm somewhere between 4.5 and 4.75 stars on this. Not a bad place to be stuck!
When I think of books that read like a movie, I often think of crime novels and thrillers, because as riveting as action or chase sequences might be to read, they always raise your pulse another few notches when you watch them unfold.
Tim Murphy's Christodora couldn't be further from that type of book, but its tremendously memorable cast of characters, a plot spanning 30+ years, and the sheer emotional power of its story would truly lend itself to a powerful film adaptation. I'd love to watch these characters interact in front of my eyes, as they've not yet gotten out of my mind even several days after I finished the book.
The Christodora is one of those iconic apartment buildings in New York City's East Village, once on the fringe of the city's urban decay. Jared Traum, a sculptor, lives with his artist wife, Milly, in an apartment that has belonged to his family for years. Their neighbor, Hector Villanueva, was once a noted AIDS activist, but he now spends his days in a drug-addicted haze, and his life crosses paths with the Traums and their adopted son, Mateo, in more ways than they can imagine.
The book spans back and forth through time. It starts in the 1980s, where Milly's mother, Ava, is a New York City health department official caught up at the start of the AIDS epidemic and the resulting fears and prejudices that hampered the city's response to the disease for so long. Ava takes Hector under her wing until he becomes part of the movement which demands accountability and appropriate treatment. Meanwhile, Ava is dealing with her own struggles with mental illness, which play out throughout Milly's life, and shape her decisions both consciously and unconsciously. The book traces Milly and Jared's relationship, and their decision to adopt young Mateo, and follows Mateo into adulthood, as he battles his own demons and searches for his own identity, and runs through the 2020s, as the ramifications of many of the characters' decisions continue to impact their lives.
Christodora is a richly told, beautifully written, and tremendously moving story about family, love, loss, ambition, battling one's demons, overcoming obstacles both physical and emotional, and the bravery needed to move on. I've seen the book referred to as an "AIDS novel," and while the epidemic and those involved in the battles against this horrible disease play a significant part in the story, it relies just as heavily on the emotional, professional, and romantic struggles of its characters. Murphy does a fantastic job creating complex characters and getting you heavily invested in their stories—it took a tremendous amount of composure not to dissolve into tears more than a few times while finishing the book on an airplane!
The book is not without its imperfections. The narration meanders from time period to time period, character to character, and it took a while to have everything coalesce in my mind. There are a lot of characters, some more peripheral than others, so I struggled periodically to keep everyone straight. And while I loved these characters so much, I found Milly's character to be somewhat rigid and unsympathetic, although I understood why. But the truth is, these issues are minor frustrations which didn't dull my emotional investment and, truthfully, my sheer love of this book.
NetGalley and Grove Atlantic provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!
See all of my reviews at http://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blo....
When I think of books that read like a movie, I often think of crime novels and thrillers, because as riveting as action or chase sequences might be to read, they always raise your pulse another few notches when you watch them unfold.
Tim Murphy's Christodora couldn't be further from that type of book, but its tremendously memorable cast of characters, a plot spanning 30+ years, and the sheer emotional power of its story would truly lend itself to a powerful film adaptation. I'd love to watch these characters interact in front of my eyes, as they've not yet gotten out of my mind even several days after I finished the book.
The Christodora is one of those iconic apartment buildings in New York City's East Village, once on the fringe of the city's urban decay. Jared Traum, a sculptor, lives with his artist wife, Milly, in an apartment that has belonged to his family for years. Their neighbor, Hector Villanueva, was once a noted AIDS activist, but he now spends his days in a drug-addicted haze, and his life crosses paths with the Traums and their adopted son, Mateo, in more ways than they can imagine.
The book spans back and forth through time. It starts in the 1980s, where Milly's mother, Ava, is a New York City health department official caught up at the start of the AIDS epidemic and the resulting fears and prejudices that hampered the city's response to the disease for so long. Ava takes Hector under her wing until he becomes part of the movement which demands accountability and appropriate treatment. Meanwhile, Ava is dealing with her own struggles with mental illness, which play out throughout Milly's life, and shape her decisions both consciously and unconsciously. The book traces Milly and Jared's relationship, and their decision to adopt young Mateo, and follows Mateo into adulthood, as he battles his own demons and searches for his own identity, and runs through the 2020s, as the ramifications of many of the characters' decisions continue to impact their lives.
Christodora is a richly told, beautifully written, and tremendously moving story about family, love, loss, ambition, battling one's demons, overcoming obstacles both physical and emotional, and the bravery needed to move on. I've seen the book referred to as an "AIDS novel," and while the epidemic and those involved in the battles against this horrible disease play a significant part in the story, it relies just as heavily on the emotional, professional, and romantic struggles of its characters. Murphy does a fantastic job creating complex characters and getting you heavily invested in their stories—it took a tremendous amount of composure not to dissolve into tears more than a few times while finishing the book on an airplane!
The book is not without its imperfections. The narration meanders from time period to time period, character to character, and it took a while to have everything coalesce in my mind. There are a lot of characters, some more peripheral than others, so I struggled periodically to keep everyone straight. And while I loved these characters so much, I found Milly's character to be somewhat rigid and unsympathetic, although I understood why. But the truth is, these issues are minor frustrations which didn't dull my emotional investment and, truthfully, my sheer love of this book.
NetGalley and Grove Atlantic provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!
See all of my reviews at http://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blo....
August 10, 2016
This is a wonderful novel, set in New York beginning in the 80's to the future 2020.
The Christodora is an iconic building in Manhattan's East Village where the fates of many of the characters intertwine.
This chronicles a family and other characters through the AIDS epidemic beginnings and onward.
I loved the characters, even the ones that were so flawed by drug abuse, etc. I loved also reading more about New York.
This had very sad moments, some shocking moments, but also very heartwarming moments, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
The Christodora is an iconic building in Manhattan's East Village where the fates of many of the characters intertwine.
This chronicles a family and other characters through the AIDS epidemic beginnings and onward.
I loved the characters, even the ones that were so flawed by drug abuse, etc. I loved also reading more about New York.
This had very sad moments, some shocking moments, but also very heartwarming moments, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
November 6, 2016
I was totally engaged with the vitality and development of the characters in this warm-hearted saga of a family impacted in multiple ways by the AIDS epidemic in New York City. The author’s method of continually switching the time frame from the 1980s to the present and beyond gave me a wonderful sense of integration from seeing beginnings and endings of significant life pathways in close proximity. Certain acts of kindness or selfishness at one point feed into a character’s choices that bear causal fruit or disaster only apparent much later. The dance of life amid the tides of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll is especially poignant in the face of the tragedies wrought by AIDS and drug abuse. There are many heroes in the tale, and those who are led astray from their humanity have a chance at regeneration and rehabilitation .
The love between Milly and Jared is the embracing foundation of the story. They are young artists (he a sculptor, she a painter) who take up residence of an old Gothic apartment house in the East Village of Manhattan, the Christodora. It is owned by his father, whose efforts to rehabilitate the building soon becomes the target of violent protests against gentrification of the neighborhood on behalf of the poor and homeless. That makes them sensitive to the plight of the underprivileged, multicultural populations around them. At the same time they are drawn by the allure of the rewards that success in the art world bring. The thrilling party life with their mutual female friend Drew represents a serious distraction. Despite Jared’s interest in having a child of their own, he acquiesces to her choice of adopting a four-year old Puerto Rican child, Mateo, whose unwed mother died of AIDS. This binds them with purpose but also makes a faultline for their marriage.
As a precursor, we get the story of Milly’s mother Ava, who directs the city’s public health department when AIDS first emerges and faces resistance in devoting resources to address the problem. The type of people most affected by the disease, gays and drug addicts, are reviled and have no political clout. Though the influence of the critical advocacy of bright young assistant, a gay Puerto Rican named Hector, she quits her job to lead an effort at help that matters, the development of a group home for pregnant women with AIDS. One of them is Mateo’s mother, Issy. Despite the kind act of Ava and the love of his adoptive parents, Mateo is undermined as he grows up from the sense of shame about his dead mother and the feeling that he was taken in out of pity. We see him as a child trying to use art to work out his troubled vision of reality and then experience him getting off track with drugs and reckless behavior. Ironically, his dangerous escapades intersect those of Hector, who comes to reside in the Christodora and is on his own downbound train.
Hector is hard to love as a person. We experience a conflict in our judgment between his personal indulgence in risky sex and drug use and his political success in getting the drug companies and the federal government to put AIDS medication development on a fast track. At one point Issy is engaged to advocate for more consideration of care and resources for women afflicted by the disease. As with the real life activist leader of the movement ACT UP, Larry Kramer, the ultimate success in effective drugs did not mitigate Hector’s anger and despair over the loss of so many friends and family to the disease and persistent stigma and discrimination faced by the afflicted. The great hope raised with the first drug AZT was dashed by the resistance that soon developed by the HIV virus. Only with the advent of protease inhibitors and combination treatment in the mid-90s did it become apparent that people living with HIV could stop planning to die and focus again on living again.
Will Mateo and Hector find their proper pathways to love and self-fulfillment? Will the severe challenges to Milly and Jared’s marriage by life’s vicissitudes lead to them being together by the end? As with one’s own family, I was led by this compelling story to eagerly seek the answers.
This book fills a serious gap in fictional portrayals of the history of the AIDS epidemic. I have encountered powerful memoirs and a number of significant novels featuring characters experiencing the ravages and stigma of AIDS, but nothing compares to the way this novel taps into the whole sweep of the epidemic and all the indirect impacts of the disease. It was particularly gratifying to me as one who has been involved for 15 years with a Ryan White integrated care project serving the northern half of Maine. The contrasts and similarities between urban and rural populations in the face of the epidemic was of special interest. Verghese’s memoir as a foreign doctor experiencing compassion for the alienation of Appalachian AIDS patients, My Own Country: A Doctor's Story, remains for me the most compelling portrait of the early epidemic in rural America.
This book was provided by the publisher for review through the Netgalley program.
The love between Milly and Jared is the embracing foundation of the story. They are young artists (he a sculptor, she a painter) who take up residence of an old Gothic apartment house in the East Village of Manhattan, the Christodora. It is owned by his father, whose efforts to rehabilitate the building soon becomes the target of violent protests against gentrification of the neighborhood on behalf of the poor and homeless. That makes them sensitive to the plight of the underprivileged, multicultural populations around them. At the same time they are drawn by the allure of the rewards that success in the art world bring. The thrilling party life with their mutual female friend Drew represents a serious distraction. Despite Jared’s interest in having a child of their own, he acquiesces to her choice of adopting a four-year old Puerto Rican child, Mateo, whose unwed mother died of AIDS. This binds them with purpose but also makes a faultline for their marriage.
As a precursor, we get the story of Milly’s mother Ava, who directs the city’s public health department when AIDS first emerges and faces resistance in devoting resources to address the problem. The type of people most affected by the disease, gays and drug addicts, are reviled and have no political clout. Though the influence of the critical advocacy of bright young assistant, a gay Puerto Rican named Hector, she quits her job to lead an effort at help that matters, the development of a group home for pregnant women with AIDS. One of them is Mateo’s mother, Issy. Despite the kind act of Ava and the love of his adoptive parents, Mateo is undermined as he grows up from the sense of shame about his dead mother and the feeling that he was taken in out of pity. We see him as a child trying to use art to work out his troubled vision of reality and then experience him getting off track with drugs and reckless behavior. Ironically, his dangerous escapades intersect those of Hector, who comes to reside in the Christodora and is on his own downbound train.
Hector is hard to love as a person. We experience a conflict in our judgment between his personal indulgence in risky sex and drug use and his political success in getting the drug companies and the federal government to put AIDS medication development on a fast track. At one point Issy is engaged to advocate for more consideration of care and resources for women afflicted by the disease. As with the real life activist leader of the movement ACT UP, Larry Kramer, the ultimate success in effective drugs did not mitigate Hector’s anger and despair over the loss of so many friends and family to the disease and persistent stigma and discrimination faced by the afflicted. The great hope raised with the first drug AZT was dashed by the resistance that soon developed by the HIV virus. Only with the advent of protease inhibitors and combination treatment in the mid-90s did it become apparent that people living with HIV could stop planning to die and focus again on living again.
Will Mateo and Hector find their proper pathways to love and self-fulfillment? Will the severe challenges to Milly and Jared’s marriage by life’s vicissitudes lead to them being together by the end? As with one’s own family, I was led by this compelling story to eagerly seek the answers.
This book fills a serious gap in fictional portrayals of the history of the AIDS epidemic. I have encountered powerful memoirs and a number of significant novels featuring characters experiencing the ravages and stigma of AIDS, but nothing compares to the way this novel taps into the whole sweep of the epidemic and all the indirect impacts of the disease. It was particularly gratifying to me as one who has been involved for 15 years with a Ryan White integrated care project serving the northern half of Maine. The contrasts and similarities between urban and rural populations in the face of the epidemic was of special interest. Verghese’s memoir as a foreign doctor experiencing compassion for the alienation of Appalachian AIDS patients, My Own Country: A Doctor's Story, remains for me the most compelling portrait of the early epidemic in rural America.
This book was provided by the publisher for review through the Netgalley program.
September 24, 2016
4.75★
“This, he thought on some murky, inchoate level, was what happened as people—a network of people—faced the end, as they realized their collective dreams weren’t coming true, that they were running faster but falling behind, that they were losing coherence and morale. They connected in rash, inappropriate ways, because, most of the time, they were unable to connect at all. The survival instinct was to isolate.”
For me it lived up to the five star hype. It is not a book I would have been drawn to and read had it not been for those reviews from GR friends so I thank you guys for the heads up on this one.
It should be noted that if graphic scenes of sex and drug use would offend you, reader discretion is advised. That said it was an amazing read and I find it very challenging to find the words to describe my response to it. It jumps back and forth from 1981 to 2020 with multiple character’s story-lines which ultimately connect. Murphy’s very talented writing kept me engaged from the outset until the last page. Nothing was gratuitous and it read, then finally fit together, like a giant jigsaw puzzle. I felt connected, not isolated. Bravissimo!
From his ending acknowledgements:
“In the past twenty years, I have met and interviewed so many people living with and/or fighting against the epidemic of HIV/AIDS, which has colored my entire adult life as an urban gay man. Many of them are no longer alive and many of those who are have had a rough go. Those conversations live in my heart and moved me to write this book, which I hope in part is about what people are capable of, individually and collectively, when pushed to the wall.”
“This, he thought on some murky, inchoate level, was what happened as people—a network of people—faced the end, as they realized their collective dreams weren’t coming true, that they were running faster but falling behind, that they were losing coherence and morale. They connected in rash, inappropriate ways, because, most of the time, they were unable to connect at all. The survival instinct was to isolate.”
For me it lived up to the five star hype. It is not a book I would have been drawn to and read had it not been for those reviews from GR friends so I thank you guys for the heads up on this one.
It should be noted that if graphic scenes of sex and drug use would offend you, reader discretion is advised. That said it was an amazing read and I find it very challenging to find the words to describe my response to it. It jumps back and forth from 1981 to 2020 with multiple character’s story-lines which ultimately connect. Murphy’s very talented writing kept me engaged from the outset until the last page. Nothing was gratuitous and it read, then finally fit together, like a giant jigsaw puzzle. I felt connected, not isolated. Bravissimo!
From his ending acknowledgements:
“In the past twenty years, I have met and interviewed so many people living with and/or fighting against the epidemic of HIV/AIDS, which has colored my entire adult life as an urban gay man. Many of them are no longer alive and many of those who are have had a rough go. Those conversations live in my heart and moved me to write this book, which I hope in part is about what people are capable of, individually and collectively, when pushed to the wall.”
October 30, 2016
* 10/30 update - I got a sweet message from the author, thanking me for my review, but he did correct me in that I am wrong on this being a debut novel...so I want to correct that! :)
Christodora is probably my favorite novel of 2016 -thus far. It is a heartbreaking story of AIDS, drug addiction, and mental illness - spanning from the 1980s-2021. My guess would be, after reading Tim Murphy's bio, that much of this is more than fiction. It is hard to believe this is a debut novel. He did a spectacular job capturing the times - the atmosphere, the lingo, music, and activism during the 80s. The characters are so well developed and real, and their stories so intense, I felt as if I had suffered with them. I loved the way Murphy switched back and forth in time, intertwining the fates of all the characters. I grew so fond of these people and days later, I am still thinking of them.
Christodora is one of the most moving novels I have read lately. It is a powerful story of bad choices, unrelenting grief, loss and redemption.
Christodora is probably my favorite novel of 2016 -thus far. It is a heartbreaking story of AIDS, drug addiction, and mental illness - spanning from the 1980s-2021. My guess would be, after reading Tim Murphy's bio, that much of this is more than fiction. It is hard to believe this is a debut novel. He did a spectacular job capturing the times - the atmosphere, the lingo, music, and activism during the 80s. The characters are so well developed and real, and their stories so intense, I felt as if I had suffered with them. I loved the way Murphy switched back and forth in time, intertwining the fates of all the characters. I grew so fond of these people and days later, I am still thinking of them.
Christodora is one of the most moving novels I have read lately. It is a powerful story of bad choices, unrelenting grief, loss and redemption.
February 6, 2017
I have a feeling that the characters in "Christodora" will continue to haunt me for a while because this book is so well written. The Christodora is a real apartment building with a colorful history, located in the East Village of New York City. Artists Milly and Jared Traum live there with their adopted son, Mateo, whose natural mother died of AIDS. Hector Villanueva, a former public health worker and AIDS activist, also lives in the building. The book slides back and forth through four decades in time. It centers around the three generations of Milly and Jared's family, their friends, and acquaintances.
The well-developed characters have to deal with challenging problems--mental illness, addiction, marital difficulties, HIV/AIDS, and identity problems. The story goes from receptions in art galleries to public health offices to AA meetings to group homes for residents with AIDS. I felt a roller coaster of emotions as the characters struggled with the difficulties life threw at them, or as they created their own problems with reckless actions. The writing is gritty with graphic scenes of hooking up and/or shooting up. But there are also moments of tenderness, love, and friendship.
The story moved from a time of despair to a time of hope. Political activism led to the creation of better drugs to fight HIV/AIDS, especially the protease inhibitors. Drugs were also combined to be more effective. The survivors often have few financial resources and huge credit card bills from the years they were unable to work.
The author is part of New York City's gay community, had experiences with addiction and depression as a young man, and works as a freelance journalist for POZ Magazine and other publications. So he's observed many of the experiences he writes about. He's created characters that seem very real--people who hit bottom, but crawl up to face life again. The book has been optioned by Paramount Television with plans to create a mini-series, produced by Cary Fukunaga and adapted by Ira Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias.
Thanks to Goodreads Firstreads and Grove Press for a copy of this book.
Interesting interview with Tim Murphy:
http://www.interviewmagazine.com/cult...
The well-developed characters have to deal with challenging problems--mental illness, addiction, marital difficulties, HIV/AIDS, and identity problems. The story goes from receptions in art galleries to public health offices to AA meetings to group homes for residents with AIDS. I felt a roller coaster of emotions as the characters struggled with the difficulties life threw at them, or as they created their own problems with reckless actions. The writing is gritty with graphic scenes of hooking up and/or shooting up. But there are also moments of tenderness, love, and friendship.
The story moved from a time of despair to a time of hope. Political activism led to the creation of better drugs to fight HIV/AIDS, especially the protease inhibitors. Drugs were also combined to be more effective. The survivors often have few financial resources and huge credit card bills from the years they were unable to work.
The author is part of New York City's gay community, had experiences with addiction and depression as a young man, and works as a freelance journalist for POZ Magazine and other publications. So he's observed many of the experiences he writes about. He's created characters that seem very real--people who hit bottom, but crawl up to face life again. The book has been optioned by Paramount Television with plans to create a mini-series, produced by Cary Fukunaga and adapted by Ira Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias.
Thanks to Goodreads Firstreads and Grove Press for a copy of this book.
Interesting interview with Tim Murphy:
http://www.interviewmagazine.com/cult...
October 30, 2021
This was a fantastic story, which covered an important issue and contained a few lovely characters. But other characters were slightly two-dimensional and the book as a whole could certainly have done with another edit, as there were quite a few poor sentences and many redundant words and phrases. Very good, though, all in all.
December 22, 2016
12/22 Update: I'm running a second giveaway for this awesome book. Open to US and Canadian residents. Visit Lit.Wit.Wine.Dine to enter. Ends 1/4/17 12:00am.
Christodora contains all of the elements you'd expect to find in an epic novel. There's 40 years worth of history, tragedy, triumph, and human drama. Surprisingly, it's well laid out in only 428 pages. I mention this because I can only imagine the difficulty in finding the balance between providing enough context and detail without adding unnecessary length.
This novel essentially the story of NYC as it comes to grips with the AIDS crisis beginning in the 1980's. It's as much a history primer as you'll find in any work of fiction on the subject of HIV/AIDS. From the sigma HIV diagnosed people faced to the development of antiviral drugs, to the devastating effects the disease had, particularly in the gay community, it's all covered. The author, Tim Murphy, himself a gay man having been diagnosed with HIV in his late twenties in NYC, has boldly shared a raw, realistic, no-holds-barred narrative of a moment in time that brought out the very best and worst in American society.
I was a nursing student and young nurse in the early 90's and there are no words to express the how horrible a disease AIDS was then, when a diagnosis pretty much meant that you would develop AIDS at some point in the not too distant future and die an agonizing death. The emotional toll was just as great as the physical with patients often dying without the benefit of family members to comfort them. There were even some healthcare professionals who refused to care for HIV positive patients. At my last job, I found an old textbook in the library which advised that there was great likelihood that HIV could be spread through tears... Fear can make people behave in very ugly ways. Fortunately, crisis can also bring out the best in people, creating unlikely alliances, and bringing forth reluctant heroes as in the case of a few of the characters in this book.
In Christodora, there is no aspect of the human condition that is left untouched. Physical and mental illness, drug/alcohol abuse, identity searches, and all types of relationships are explored. Again, the manner in which this story is told is both realistic and raw and may not be for the faint of heart. That said, I didn't find even the more graphic passages to be sensationalistic or gratuitous.
I found the characters to be well-developed, though I didn't really identify with any of them. In fact, there wasn't one character I found to be completely likable. All of the main characters were endearing one moment and frustrating the next. In other words, they were human.
If I had one criticism, it would be that there were times when I found the timeline a little tough to follow. It wasn't a huge deal, but I did have to flip back to the beginning of the previous chapter to check the date on a couple of occasions.
Overall, though, I felt this was a very good book. I would highly recommend it to young people who aren't able to recall memories of breaking news that "another person has just been diagnosed with the mysterious illness that seems affecting gay men.". We have come a long way but we mustn't forget...
For more information on the history of HIV/AIDS in the United States, visit AIDS.gov
4/25/5 stars
Thanks to Grove Atlantic for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Christodora contains all of the elements you'd expect to find in an epic novel. There's 40 years worth of history, tragedy, triumph, and human drama. Surprisingly, it's well laid out in only 428 pages. I mention this because I can only imagine the difficulty in finding the balance between providing enough context and detail without adding unnecessary length.
This novel essentially the story of NYC as it comes to grips with the AIDS crisis beginning in the 1980's. It's as much a history primer as you'll find in any work of fiction on the subject of HIV/AIDS. From the sigma HIV diagnosed people faced to the development of antiviral drugs, to the devastating effects the disease had, particularly in the gay community, it's all covered. The author, Tim Murphy, himself a gay man having been diagnosed with HIV in his late twenties in NYC, has boldly shared a raw, realistic, no-holds-barred narrative of a moment in time that brought out the very best and worst in American society.
I was a nursing student and young nurse in the early 90's and there are no words to express the how horrible a disease AIDS was then, when a diagnosis pretty much meant that you would develop AIDS at some point in the not too distant future and die an agonizing death. The emotional toll was just as great as the physical with patients often dying without the benefit of family members to comfort them. There were even some healthcare professionals who refused to care for HIV positive patients. At my last job, I found an old textbook in the library which advised that there was great likelihood that HIV could be spread through tears... Fear can make people behave in very ugly ways. Fortunately, crisis can also bring out the best in people, creating unlikely alliances, and bringing forth reluctant heroes as in the case of a few of the characters in this book.
In Christodora, there is no aspect of the human condition that is left untouched. Physical and mental illness, drug/alcohol abuse, identity searches, and all types of relationships are explored. Again, the manner in which this story is told is both realistic and raw and may not be for the faint of heart. That said, I didn't find even the more graphic passages to be sensationalistic or gratuitous.
I found the characters to be well-developed, though I didn't really identify with any of them. In fact, there wasn't one character I found to be completely likable. All of the main characters were endearing one moment and frustrating the next. In other words, they were human.
If I had one criticism, it would be that there were times when I found the timeline a little tough to follow. It wasn't a huge deal, but I did have to flip back to the beginning of the previous chapter to check the date on a couple of occasions.
Overall, though, I felt this was a very good book. I would highly recommend it to young people who aren't able to recall memories of breaking news that "another person has just been diagnosed with the mysterious illness that seems affecting gay men.". We have come a long way but we mustn't forget...
For more information on the history of HIV/AIDS in the United States, visit AIDS.gov
4/25/5 stars
Thanks to Grove Atlantic for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
July 30, 2016
In the early 1980s, when Ava works for the NYC health department, AIDS is an unacknowledged epidemic. Ava’s new protégé is Hector Villanueva, for a short period of time, until he becomes an AIDS activist. Ava, struggling with her mental illness, becomes frustrated with the city’s lack of interest in helping, and opens a home for women with AIDS. Ysabel is one of her “charges,” a young, Latino woman whose family wants nothing to do with her after she’s seen on the NEWS talking about having AIDS. Ysabel’s parents are disgraced. Ava cares deeply for Ysabel, and later for Ysabel’s infant son when Ysabel dies.
Milly is Ava’s daughter, an artist married to Jared, a sculptor, her stabilizing factor. They live in the Christodora, a building in the East Village, which his father bought in the late 1970s. Millie meets young Mateo, and ultimately Milly and Jared adopt a very young Mateo. The neighborhood surrounding the building at night becomes seedier, filled with derelicts and druggies. Inside the building is generally safe, until one day when Mateo is bit by Hector’s dog, who lives in the building.
There are also multiple friends, but primarily there is Drew. She’s a little bit of a wild child in her early years. You can see, feel, each of the issues they worry over, the problems they face, the dilemmas they create. Each person is so real; their personal stories are so developed and well conveyed.
This is a book that people will talk about, with wonderfully drawn characters, covering over 40 years, spanning from NYC to sunny California, drug addictions, AIDS, adoptions, families, in this impressive piece of work, even more so when you consider this is a debut novel. It’s a testament to families, those we are born with and those we create by our literal or figurative adoption of others, the ability to forgive others, and maybe even forgive ourselves.
Pub Date: 2 August 2016
Many thanks to Grove Atlantic and to the author Tim Murphy for providing me with an advanced copy which I received through goodreads give-away.
September 3, 2019
This is a book that was recommended to me by a book tuber on You Tube.
It took me ages to get into it but it was worth it.
Christodora turns out to be a home where Jarred and Milly live.
I thought this fitted in well for Gay pride month. Hector next door is gay. He’s an addict and very down on his hunkers.
Milly and Jarred have an adopted son, living in New York he grows to see all that it has to offer and life itself. Plus his personal realisation.
Hector the neighbour and themselves become very intertwined as the story enfolds.
The history around everything was a reminder of struggles in the past too. The world was troubled with the AIDS epidemic and everything that surrounded that. The fear, the unknown and the hate on gays.
This book span some 40 years. It’s a chunkier of a book but it won’t feel that way once you are 1/4 of the way through.
It took me ages to get into it but it was worth it.
Christodora turns out to be a home where Jarred and Milly live.
I thought this fitted in well for Gay pride month. Hector next door is gay. He’s an addict and very down on his hunkers.
Milly and Jarred have an adopted son, living in New York he grows to see all that it has to offer and life itself. Plus his personal realisation.
Hector the neighbour and themselves become very intertwined as the story enfolds.
The history around everything was a reminder of struggles in the past too. The world was troubled with the AIDS epidemic and everything that surrounded that. The fear, the unknown and the hate on gays.
This book span some 40 years. It’s a chunkier of a book but it won’t feel that way once you are 1/4 of the way through.
October 10, 2017
I had actually never even heard of this book until I read a friends review. Then I began to read other reviews on this book. Almost everyone on my friend's list, who has read it, loved it. While I was cautiously optimistic about this book, I also thought "Oh Shit!" what if I don't like it? Then guess what? I stared it and I didn't care for it - initially. So I put it down after 30 or so pages and read several other books and I would pick up Christodora and read a page or two, here and there.
I have a 100 page rule. I have to read the first 100 pages before I decide it I don't want to finish. It is extremely rare for me not to finish a book. So I decided to pick up Christodora once again and it give the old college try. By page 50 (which is about Hector), I was on board. I was like the proverbial fly on the wall. Watching the happenings of a group of people residing at/or who once resided at the Christodora in the Manhattan's east village.
The novel jumps around in time from the 10980's to the 2020's. This book follows the lives of Milly and Jared, both young artists who adopted a young boy named Mateo and Hector, a Puerto Rican gay man who was once a celebrated AIDS activist who has become an addict. This book tells the story of AIDS, adoption, what makes a family, addiction, homosexuality, battling personal demons, identity, acceptance, loneliness and love.
As I mentioned earlier, the story does jump back and forth in time with the chapter headings informing us where and what time we are in. My favorite part was when Hector said "I did something right" in regards to another character. Be warned, this is not a happy go lucky tale. It is a raw look at NYC during the AIDS epidemic. It is both well written and moving.
So if this book starts slow for you as it did me, give it some time and a little patience as the story will build and enthrall you.
See more of my reviews at www.openbookpost.com
I have a 100 page rule. I have to read the first 100 pages before I decide it I don't want to finish. It is extremely rare for me not to finish a book. So I decided to pick up Christodora once again and it give the old college try. By page 50 (which is about Hector), I was on board. I was like the proverbial fly on the wall. Watching the happenings of a group of people residing at/or who once resided at the Christodora in the Manhattan's east village.
The novel jumps around in time from the 10980's to the 2020's. This book follows the lives of Milly and Jared, both young artists who adopted a young boy named Mateo and Hector, a Puerto Rican gay man who was once a celebrated AIDS activist who has become an addict. This book tells the story of AIDS, adoption, what makes a family, addiction, homosexuality, battling personal demons, identity, acceptance, loneliness and love.
As I mentioned earlier, the story does jump back and forth in time with the chapter headings informing us where and what time we are in. My favorite part was when Hector said "I did something right" in regards to another character. Be warned, this is not a happy go lucky tale. It is a raw look at NYC during the AIDS epidemic. It is both well written and moving.
So if this book starts slow for you as it did me, give it some time and a little patience as the story will build and enthrall you.
See more of my reviews at www.openbookpost.com
September 24, 2017
I'm a little late to the party on this one, but I've always wanted to read it based on the description and my GR friends' reviews. It is excellent!
I loved the setting, which was primarily New York City from 1981 to 2021. The heart of the story is the AIDS epidemic and the main characters' lives are all touched and linked together in some way by it. I loved all of the characters, who were beautifully and believably fleshed out. The only quibble I have it the way the story is told. It is a bit of a choppy reading experience, with so many characters and chapters going forwards and backwards in time. At first, I couldn't figure out why he didn't just tell the story in a linear fashion since the flash-backward, flash-forward, flash-sideways thing was interrupting the flow of the story for me. But Murphy has some surprises to reveal and he really couldn't have told it any other way without giving away his secrets.
If you haven't read this yet, I highly recommend it. It's a gem!
A belated thank you to Netgalley and Grove Press for a ARC of this book. My review is based on the hardcover edition.
I loved the setting, which was primarily New York City from 1981 to 2021. The heart of the story is the AIDS epidemic and the main characters' lives are all touched and linked together in some way by it. I loved all of the characters, who were beautifully and believably fleshed out. The only quibble I have it the way the story is told. It is a bit of a choppy reading experience, with so many characters and chapters going forwards and backwards in time. At first, I couldn't figure out why he didn't just tell the story in a linear fashion since the flash-backward, flash-forward, flash-sideways thing was interrupting the flow of the story for me. But Murphy has some surprises to reveal and he really couldn't have told it any other way without giving away his secrets.
If you haven't read this yet, I highly recommend it. It's a gem!
A belated thank you to Netgalley and Grove Press for a ARC of this book. My review is based on the hardcover edition.
September 25, 2016
Despite the title, this book is not just about the Christodora building, not just about New York City. I believe the essence of this book is in its people and the things they’re capable of. Cruelty, abandonment, kindness, and love. Despite the hurt caused and havoc wreaked, the characters in this story are not bad people, just very real and flawed human beings. Everyone has a burden that they carry, be it addiction, depression or mental illness. We get to see the tragedies that befall them as they wend their way through life and around one another, and how they heal. Or… how they spiral out of control. Or simply retreat into themselves.
I enjoyed learning about the activism in the gay community with regard to getting the research funded for the drugs that would eventually ensure that AIDS was no longer a death sentence. I was an adolescent at the time but I remember the AIDS crisis. It’s amazing to think how far we have come, now having a better understanding of all the challenges that people living with the disease faced during that time.
One thing I can’t let of is this: the crazy chronology has got to go. I understand why authors use this technique and it often improves the telling of the story when done right. Unfortunately, Christodora covers about four decades of time with multiple selected years within each, that Murphy jumps in and out of. It was tough for me to keep track of events without paging back to recall what happened in which year. I couldn’t help but feel it wasn’t necessary and the story could have been told just as well with less time-hopping.
I might not have been as wowed by this one as a lot people were but, in all honesty, I’ve been completely within its grip these last few days. This is a down-to-earth revelation of lives in the city through different eras -- no punches pulled, no softening of the impact. As hard as it can sometimes be to witness, there is truth in these pages.
I enjoyed learning about the activism in the gay community with regard to getting the research funded for the drugs that would eventually ensure that AIDS was no longer a death sentence. I was an adolescent at the time but I remember the AIDS crisis. It’s amazing to think how far we have come, now having a better understanding of all the challenges that people living with the disease faced during that time.
One thing I can’t let of is this: the crazy chronology has got to go. I understand why authors use this technique and it often improves the telling of the story when done right. Unfortunately, Christodora covers about four decades of time with multiple selected years within each, that Murphy jumps in and out of. It was tough for me to keep track of events without paging back to recall what happened in which year. I couldn’t help but feel it wasn’t necessary and the story could have been told just as well with less time-hopping.
I might not have been as wowed by this one as a lot people were but, in all honesty, I’ve been completely within its grip these last few days. This is a down-to-earth revelation of lives in the city through different eras -- no punches pulled, no softening of the impact. As hard as it can sometimes be to witness, there is truth in these pages.
November 16, 2016
Dear Mr Murphy,
I bet a lot of your friends and family told you that you wrote a powerfull, brilliant novel. I also bet you and your close ones don't really understand why Christadora wasn't nominated for any award, has less than 500 ratings on Goodreads and didn't really escape City on fire's shadow. I also bet that you regard yourself and your close ones as highly biased. Maybe you even started doubting about how good you thought it was.
Well, I'm sure they are biased, but the're also 100% right in their opinion on your novel.
It is -together with The Nix- my favorite work of fiction read in 2016. I have no idea why this isn't shortlisted or widely applauded. I'm sorry for the majority of my fellow readers who skipped or missed it.
I'll recommend this gem everywhere I go and tell readers that it is not that challenging, that the jumping structure is not confusing and gives even more strength to the novel, that the people in it are real real real, that it is heavenly compelling. I would also advice future readers to read this at a fast pace.
Kind regards and so looking forward to your next publication,
Joachim
I bet a lot of your friends and family told you that you wrote a powerfull, brilliant novel. I also bet you and your close ones don't really understand why Christadora wasn't nominated for any award, has less than 500 ratings on Goodreads and didn't really escape City on fire's shadow. I also bet that you regard yourself and your close ones as highly biased. Maybe you even started doubting about how good you thought it was.
Well, I'm sure they are biased, but the're also 100% right in their opinion on your novel.
It is -together with The Nix- my favorite work of fiction read in 2016. I have no idea why this isn't shortlisted or widely applauded. I'm sorry for the majority of my fellow readers who skipped or missed it.
I'll recommend this gem everywhere I go and tell readers that it is not that challenging, that the jumping structure is not confusing and gives even more strength to the novel, that the people in it are real real real, that it is heavenly compelling. I would also advice future readers to read this at a fast pace.
Kind regards and so looking forward to your next publication,
Joachim
August 31, 2018
I read many glowing reviews of Christodora written by Tim Murphy and yet I still wasn't sure what to expect. I wasn't familiar with the Christodora, an old iconic building in Manhattan's East Village, which provides the backdrop against which this story plays out. I thought I was going to read a tale of the early days of the AIDS epidemic which took such a tremendous toll on New York City, the country and the world in the 1980s and 90s…. and it WAS that. But the story turned out to be so much more. What I hadn't realized or expected was the richness and depth of the characters I would be introduced to in this story which so absorbed and overwhelmed me. Tim Murphy showcased humanity in all of its imperfect glory in this story ; and this is exactly the type of story I love to lose myself in.
The story occurs over a period of more than 30 years and begins in the early 1980s. Moving backward and forward through time (which I admit WAS a bit jarring for me!), you are introduced to a multitude of characters … characters that are complex, flawed and certainly not always likable, but if you, like me, are honest with yourself, I think you will find that you can relate to some of their struggles.
Living in an apartment in the Christodora are Jared and Milly, a couple from well-off families who seem to think of themselves as struggling artists but who often struck me as 'playing at' their lives. They often treat their lives as if they are simply a test run.. a practice life… playing at being a couple, playing at being serious artists and at times even playing at being parents to their foster son, Mateo. I could never quite shake the feeling that the two were never REALLY committed to anything in their lives… perhaps out of fears that they couldn't even acknowledge to themselves. There is Mateo.. a boy orphaned as a baby by the death of his mother from AIDS. Milly and Jared took him into their home but despite having all the material things he could ever need, Mateo always longed for the mother he had never really known. He had a hollow place in inside which could only ever be filled by knowing where he came from. The absence of that knowledge and his inability to ask the important questions left him vulnerable. And when his life inevitably went off track, it did so in spectacular fashion. There's Ava.. Milly's mother.. who is determined to work her way up the food chain at the New York City Health Department… that is, until she is forced to battle mental illness. Her personal battle makes her more compassionate in helping the public and being responsive to their needs; but seems to blind her to the needs of her own daughter. When the Aids epidemic strikes, she realizes how ineffectual she is because of the bureaucracy and politics of the city government, so she strikes out to join the activists.
Hector lives upstairs from Milly and Jared in the Christodora and he was once a renowned and well-respected activist for the AIDS movement. What he becomes is an older-than-his years heroin and meth addict, eventually finding himself homeless and on a park bench. He hasn't been able to deal with losing the only man he ever loved to AIDS so he has attempted to escape into the haze that drugs provide him. Finally, there is Ysabel (probably my favorite character), a young Latina woman who was stricken with AIDS after an interlude with a man she really didn't know. Ysabel was terrified when she received her diagnosis .. her family was strictly religious and her upbringing kept her terrified and hiding her diagnosis …. that is, until she realized she couldn't hide any longer. She became a reluctant activist but so courageous.. and she ended up being extremely skilled at standing up for ALL people living and dying with AIDS… but most especially women… and even though it cost her her family. Finally, because of Ysabel and others, women were officially included as a group recognized as dealing with AIDS and all of its complications. Ysabel became a champion for the cause but sadly didn't survive long enough to benefit from the fruits of her hard-fought labors.
There is SO much going on in this story.It is, of course, about the AIDS epidemic but it is also about mental illness, drug addiction, parental love and responsibility, homelessness, sexual experimentation without thought of possible consequences.. and so much more. Tim Murphy skillfully captures the social, political and cultural atmosphere and mood of the 1980s and 90s and in doing so writes an extraordinary story of tragedy and redemption. This is a book I won't soon forget and I highly recommend it!
The story occurs over a period of more than 30 years and begins in the early 1980s. Moving backward and forward through time (which I admit WAS a bit jarring for me!), you are introduced to a multitude of characters … characters that are complex, flawed and certainly not always likable, but if you, like me, are honest with yourself, I think you will find that you can relate to some of their struggles.
Living in an apartment in the Christodora are Jared and Milly, a couple from well-off families who seem to think of themselves as struggling artists but who often struck me as 'playing at' their lives. They often treat their lives as if they are simply a test run.. a practice life… playing at being a couple, playing at being serious artists and at times even playing at being parents to their foster son, Mateo. I could never quite shake the feeling that the two were never REALLY committed to anything in their lives… perhaps out of fears that they couldn't even acknowledge to themselves. There is Mateo.. a boy orphaned as a baby by the death of his mother from AIDS. Milly and Jared took him into their home but despite having all the material things he could ever need, Mateo always longed for the mother he had never really known. He had a hollow place in inside which could only ever be filled by knowing where he came from. The absence of that knowledge and his inability to ask the important questions left him vulnerable. And when his life inevitably went off track, it did so in spectacular fashion. There's Ava.. Milly's mother.. who is determined to work her way up the food chain at the New York City Health Department… that is, until she is forced to battle mental illness. Her personal battle makes her more compassionate in helping the public and being responsive to their needs; but seems to blind her to the needs of her own daughter. When the Aids epidemic strikes, she realizes how ineffectual she is because of the bureaucracy and politics of the city government, so she strikes out to join the activists.
Hector lives upstairs from Milly and Jared in the Christodora and he was once a renowned and well-respected activist for the AIDS movement. What he becomes is an older-than-his years heroin and meth addict, eventually finding himself homeless and on a park bench. He hasn't been able to deal with losing the only man he ever loved to AIDS so he has attempted to escape into the haze that drugs provide him. Finally, there is Ysabel (probably my favorite character), a young Latina woman who was stricken with AIDS after an interlude with a man she really didn't know. Ysabel was terrified when she received her diagnosis .. her family was strictly religious and her upbringing kept her terrified and hiding her diagnosis …. that is, until she realized she couldn't hide any longer. She became a reluctant activist but so courageous.. and she ended up being extremely skilled at standing up for ALL people living and dying with AIDS… but most especially women… and even though it cost her her family. Finally, because of Ysabel and others, women were officially included as a group recognized as dealing with AIDS and all of its complications. Ysabel became a champion for the cause but sadly didn't survive long enough to benefit from the fruits of her hard-fought labors.
There is SO much going on in this story.It is, of course, about the AIDS epidemic but it is also about mental illness, drug addiction, parental love and responsibility, homelessness, sexual experimentation without thought of possible consequences.. and so much more. Tim Murphy skillfully captures the social, political and cultural atmosphere and mood of the 1980s and 90s and in doing so writes an extraordinary story of tragedy and redemption. This is a book I won't soon forget and I highly recommend it!
November 16, 2016
This powerful novel is prefaced by a haunting O. Henry quotation: “Pull up the shades so I can see New York. I don’t want to go home in the dark.”
In New York in the 1980s, all too many people – mostly gay, mostly male – were going home in the dark as the AIDS epidemic gained ground. The rest of us, at least in the beginning, were in the dark as well, not quite understanding the gravity and terrifying implications of this horrendous disease and going blithely about our business. It is to Tim Murphy’s credit that he illuminates the era as he firmly focuses on the legacy of AIDS.
The vortex of his novel is an artistically-inclined young boy named Mateo, whose mother, Issy, was one of the first Latina activists against AIDS, and the two liberal artists and urban pioneers, Milly and Jared, who adopt him and raise him at Christodora – the inevitable “triumph” of gentrification -- and a real East Village apartment building.
As the novel shifts back and forth from the early years of the AIDS epidemic to a future where AIDS is cured, Mateo is the era’s lost son, struggling to find identity and meaning. Like Saint-Expery’s Little Prince, he is exiled from his own essence and must find his way to a safe place called “home.”
Yet while Mateo and his adopted parents anchor the story, it’s the other characters who round it out, including Hector, who leaves the NYC Department of Health to join the fledgling activist group ACT UP. At first fueled with promise and drive, Hector embodies all the anger of “too little too late” and embraces heroin and meth addictions to provide him with a sought-after state of temporary forgetfulness.
Moving seamlessly from the day-to-day business of health care bureaucrats to the victims that activism has forgotten to the bourgeois concerns of those who stand ready to serve in AIDS shadows, Christodora is filled with uncomfortable truths. It ambitiously tackles so many important themes: the interweaving of AIDS and drugs, which lets those who are surviving “go through the hole in the sky”, the challenge of parenting and the long shadow of mental illness, the ramifications of gentrification and more.
The book made me think and made me feel and most importantly, helped me understand what it is like for those who endured the worst of it, either as a victim or a so-called survivor. Highly recommended.
In New York in the 1980s, all too many people – mostly gay, mostly male – were going home in the dark as the AIDS epidemic gained ground. The rest of us, at least in the beginning, were in the dark as well, not quite understanding the gravity and terrifying implications of this horrendous disease and going blithely about our business. It is to Tim Murphy’s credit that he illuminates the era as he firmly focuses on the legacy of AIDS.
The vortex of his novel is an artistically-inclined young boy named Mateo, whose mother, Issy, was one of the first Latina activists against AIDS, and the two liberal artists and urban pioneers, Milly and Jared, who adopt him and raise him at Christodora – the inevitable “triumph” of gentrification -- and a real East Village apartment building.
As the novel shifts back and forth from the early years of the AIDS epidemic to a future where AIDS is cured, Mateo is the era’s lost son, struggling to find identity and meaning. Like Saint-Expery’s Little Prince, he is exiled from his own essence and must find his way to a safe place called “home.”
Yet while Mateo and his adopted parents anchor the story, it’s the other characters who round it out, including Hector, who leaves the NYC Department of Health to join the fledgling activist group ACT UP. At first fueled with promise and drive, Hector embodies all the anger of “too little too late” and embraces heroin and meth addictions to provide him with a sought-after state of temporary forgetfulness.
Moving seamlessly from the day-to-day business of health care bureaucrats to the victims that activism has forgotten to the bourgeois concerns of those who stand ready to serve in AIDS shadows, Christodora is filled with uncomfortable truths. It ambitiously tackles so many important themes: the interweaving of AIDS and drugs, which lets those who are surviving “go through the hole in the sky”, the challenge of parenting and the long shadow of mental illness, the ramifications of gentrification and more.
The book made me think and made me feel and most importantly, helped me understand what it is like for those who endured the worst of it, either as a victim or a so-called survivor. Highly recommended.
didn-t-finish
October 15, 2016final thoughts to come on this book I've chosen not to finish...
The book, setting and characters are largely centered on an area of NYC affected by the AIDS epidemic, the ravages of hard drugs along side the gentrification of parts of the city. I have had difficulty dealing with all of the downsides of personal choices in the book and the negativity, especially in some of the young peoples' lives. Perhaps this will be redeemed later in the book, but at this moment in my life it simply doesn't appeal and there isn't enough positive for me to hold on to.
On the plus side, the writing really is excellent and deserving of the praise it is getting so I do not intend to slam the book at all. I just don't feel it's for me right now. For that reason, I'm not going to officially rate it here or for NetGalley as I think that might be a disservice.
While I can't specafically recommend it, I would suggest my followers look at other reviews for suggestions to help them with decision making on this one.
The book, setting and characters are largely centered on an area of NYC affected by the AIDS epidemic, the ravages of hard drugs along side the gentrification of parts of the city. I have had difficulty dealing with all of the downsides of personal choices in the book and the negativity, especially in some of the young peoples' lives. Perhaps this will be redeemed later in the book, but at this moment in my life it simply doesn't appeal and there isn't enough positive for me to hold on to.
On the plus side, the writing really is excellent and deserving of the praise it is getting so I do not intend to slam the book at all. I just don't feel it's for me right now. For that reason, I'm not going to officially rate it here or for NetGalley as I think that might be a disservice.
While I can't specafically recommend it, I would suggest my followers look at other reviews for suggestions to help them with decision making on this one.
October 2, 2016
This is a phenomenal book. It follows the lives of 20 people over three decades who are all loosely associated with a building in the East Village. The author slowly and deftly reveals the interconnection between the seemingly disparate characters. The book examines love, betrayal, addiction, forgiveness, and the ravages of AIDS in a bold and visceral manner. The characters felt very genuine to me and I was sad when the 17 hour audiobook came to an end.
January 10, 2017
5 Remarkable Stars ; 5 for the Audio
Incredibly told, harshly real, but with love.
Heartfelt fiction of the AIDS/HIV epidemic during the 1970-1980s, primarily in NYC where people, young and old, male and female, were dying quickly, sadly, horribly, from this disease no one knew how to fight let alone cure. Intertwined in the facts are stories of people, families, children, couples, students, etc. from all walks of life, socio-economic status, racial and ethnic backgrounds. This disease did not discriminate. And of course, the drug users, primarily the intravenous heroin addicts of that time who weren't cautious about sharing needles. Incredibly told, harshly real, but with love.
Thank you Grove Atlantic, Netgalley, and Tim Murphy for writing this story that needed to be told, especially about the heroes who protested, fought in Washington, pushed scientists and saved lives.
Update: Now listening to the audio with 5 different readers! An audio play! Like it should be; the first to really know how to get this done!!! Wow
Incredibly told, harshly real, but with love.
Heartfelt fiction of the AIDS/HIV epidemic during the 1970-1980s, primarily in NYC where people, young and old, male and female, were dying quickly, sadly, horribly, from this disease no one knew how to fight let alone cure. Intertwined in the facts are stories of people, families, children, couples, students, etc. from all walks of life, socio-economic status, racial and ethnic backgrounds. This disease did not discriminate. And of course, the drug users, primarily the intravenous heroin addicts of that time who weren't cautious about sharing needles. Incredibly told, harshly real, but with love.
Thank you Grove Atlantic, Netgalley, and Tim Murphy for writing this story that needed to be told, especially about the heroes who protested, fought in Washington, pushed scientists and saved lives.
Update: Now listening to the audio with 5 different readers! An audio play! Like it should be; the first to really know how to get this done!!! Wow
November 1, 2016
Update - I nominated this for the Debut Goodreads Author. Sadly Christodora hasn't received the notice or traction that I thought it would. It's good. I recommend it.
Brief review from my phone: totally my kind of book, family journey framed in the historical reference of early AIDS activism. NYC centric with a little bit of left coast to satisfy my sweet tooth. A wonderful diverse set of characters. The audiobook used multiple narrators which I normally don't like, but I found it really well done.
Voted for "Christodora" in the Opening Round of the 2016 #GoodreadsChoice Awards https://t.co/joVmQDDqy4 via @goodreads
— Katie Mc (@KatieMcAtGR) November 1, 2016
Brief review from my phone: totally my kind of book, family journey framed in the historical reference of early AIDS activism. NYC centric with a little bit of left coast to satisfy my sweet tooth. A wonderful diverse set of characters. The audiobook used multiple narrators which I normally don't like, but I found it really well done.
Read
August 5, 2016This is in severe contention for my Favorite Book of 2016. We live in a time where HIV/AIDS is no longer seen as a death sentence, but this story reminded me of just how recently being diagnosed attached to you a stigma that would remain with you for your few remaining days. This sweeping tale of AIDS activists and the incredible changes they inspired is heart-wrenching, hopeful and beautiful. Murphy writes in the voices of his characters so distinctly that I could almost hear an audio quality to his writing. The minute this comes out in August… pick it up immediately!
–Elizabeth Allen
from The Best Books We Read In July 2016: http://bookriot.com/2016/08/01/riot-r...
–Elizabeth Allen
from The Best Books We Read In July 2016: http://bookriot.com/2016/08/01/riot-r...
September 30, 2016
This book sucked me in from the beginning. It's a rollicking, decades-long panorama of New York City in the style of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, and at times I liked it just as much. Weaving together stories of gentrification, substance abuse, mental illness, adoption, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and family dynamics, "Christadora" tells the story of one Alphabet City family--as well as those locked in its orbit--in poignant detail.
I really enjoy books based in New York, because I get a thrill from the mention of places I've frequented--I used to live on Orchard and Houston in the LES, so I habituated Katz's, Russ & Daughters, Two Boots Pizza, The Blue and Gold, Tompkins Square Park, etc.--but it was also gripping to read about organizations I've actually worked with, like Gay Men's Health Crisis, and to understand a bit more of the saga decades before things had stabilized from Tim Murphy, a herald as entitled as any other to tell it. There were times when the "white guy writes dialogue for non-white people" trope got a bit awkward, and at times plot points felt too forced or realizations were made too hastily or clunkily. And I think that perhaps Jared's redemption was never realized and a few others left out or hastily concluded, but overall this was a highly enjoyable page-turner and tear-jerker.
And for the dignity that it gives without sanitizing the HIV/AIDS rights movement, "Christadora" is a standout. It humanizes people who won small and quiet but vital (in the truest sense of the word!) victories in the face of imposing odds and social antipathy, and it does not airbrush out the scars they earned in their battles. As Murphy puts it,
I really enjoy books based in New York, because I get a thrill from the mention of places I've frequented--I used to live on Orchard and Houston in the LES, so I habituated Katz's, Russ & Daughters, Two Boots Pizza, The Blue and Gold, Tompkins Square Park, etc.--but it was also gripping to read about organizations I've actually worked with, like Gay Men's Health Crisis, and to understand a bit more of the saga decades before things had stabilized from Tim Murphy, a herald as entitled as any other to tell it. There were times when the "white guy writes dialogue for non-white people" trope got a bit awkward, and at times plot points felt too forced or realizations were made too hastily or clunkily. And I think that perhaps Jared's redemption was never realized and a few others left out or hastily concluded, but overall this was a highly enjoyable page-turner and tear-jerker.
And for the dignity that it gives without sanitizing the HIV/AIDS rights movement, "Christadora" is a standout. It humanizes people who won small and quiet but vital (in the truest sense of the word!) victories in the face of imposing odds and social antipathy, and it does not airbrush out the scars they earned in their battles. As Murphy puts it,
That was the thing about the [HIV/AIDS] movement, wasn't it? People came thinking they were dying but they ended up finding out how powerful they really were.
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