𐂠:Offerings/When Jonathan Died

folks -- you wanted it, you asked for it, and we've heard ya loud and clear. it's the name we hear over and over again. the words on everyone's lips are "Reprint Tony Duvert's 'When Jonathan Died'!!!" and boy am i pleased to be the one to bring you this happy news. this is, what the fuck, going for $700 and >$1000 on abebooks right now? (this description was written a while ago. as of jan 1, 2025 the two abebooks copies are $150 and $300. french estate trolls think this is acceptable)

the description is, let's see here: "Like so many novels, this book is the story of a love affair. What is less usual is that Jonathan, an artist, is almost thirty when the story starts, while Serge is a boy of eight."

actually, from the first moment i was talking about selling bootlegs with people, i was adamant about wanting to reprint When Jonathan Died. it certainly felt like a minor miracle to yank down a scan, courtesy of the boston public library via the internet archive, at a cultural moment of deeply insecure losers invoking some sense of 'protecting children' to justify eradicating anything containing the most anodyne acknowledgement of the existence of homosexuality. qq more, etc

this certainly less explicit than the currently-in-print on semiotext(e) "Diary of an Innocent". i also found it fucking devastating. a narrative about finding yourself utterly outside of The World, and any glance you make back in leaves you feeling like continuing as a ghost surely must be better than trying to assimilate into something cruel and hideous. and finding a doomed, unstable oasis of love. i expected "boku no pico" and i got "no longer human", except, perhaps, moreso.