“This Wild Darkness: The Story of My Death”

“How do you even begin?

The book is a slim diary from Brodkey’s last days. He had AIDS, which killed him in 1996. At the time of his diagnosis, a few good years was the most a person could hope for, and his last years were spent in decline, knowing the parameters of his life were foreshortened.

So can I forgive a lot of things? Yes. It doesn’t serve other readers if I’m not honest, if I don’t say that there were parts where I found the prose a little confusing or rambly, or if I say that the true gems in this book were obscured and planted deep within some stuff that was pretty hard to penetrate.

However, talking about this book, I think it’d cost less to my soul to say that there was some wisdom and depth of sadness here, and after saying that much to simply move on.”