Rat Bohemia

First published in 1995, this award-winning novel is a bold, achingly honest story set in the ‘Rat bohemia’ of New York City, whose huddled masses include gay men and lesbians abandoned by their families and forced to find new bonds with one another in the wake of this loss. Navigating the currents of the city are three friends: Rita Mae, a rat exterminator; Killer, a career plant-waterer; and David, an HIV-positive writer. Together, they seek new ways to be truthful and honest about their lives as others around them avert their glances. Alternately elegiac, defiant, and funny, ‘Rat Bohemia’ is an expansive novel about how one can cope with loss and heal the wounds of the past by reinventing oneself in the city.