[Kindle]. In the recent NYT story about David's efforts to write it between final bouts of chemotherapy, his editor said the novel is "the purest distillation of David’s belief that we live in a world that is essentially cruel and indifferent, but there are remedies for that. And the remedies are kindness and beauty. It’s very clever and erudite, and it’s very, very funny, as David was, but fundamentally it is a brief for kindness."
Critic Craig Seligman praised the book, especially the gay artist Cliff who is dazzled by San Francisco and its easy sex:
"And crowning it all was the chief among joys:
"The liquid, ubiquitous river of boys.
"[Expletive], kissable, dateable, rentable,
"Faeries and rough trade, or highly presentable.
"Stupid as livestock or literate in Firbank,
"All of it galaxies distant from Burbank."
David was too sick to draw the illustrations throughout the book (done instead by Chip Kidd / Seth, who designed / drew the cover) but, two weeks before he died, he did find the strength to read the unabridged audio version over four days of two-hour sessions.
After the jump, another passage in which the aids-stricken Cliff laments leaving life too soon.
Get David's previous bestselling books of humor: Fraud [Kindle], Don't Get Too Comfortable, and Half Empty [Kindle].
It was sadness that gripped him, far more than the fear
That, if facing the truth, he had maybe a year.
When poetic phrases like “eyes, look your last”
Become true, all you want is to stay, to hold fast.
A new, fierce attachment to all of this world
Now pierced him, it stabbed like a deity-hurled
Lightning bolt lancing him, sent from above.
Left him giddy and tearful. It felt like young love.
He’d thought of himself as uniquely proficient
At seeing, but now that sense felt insufficient.
He wanted to grab, to possess, to devour
To eat with his eyes, how he needed that power.
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