From Library Journal
This selection of letters (most composed in 1984) have to be read to be believed. Delany-black, gay, a father, and author of Times Square Red, Times Square Blue and of sf, pornography, and social, political, and literary criticism-chronicles his view of the cultural and the countercultural scene of the early 1980s, including the beginning of AIDS outbreak and the various public and private responses to the disease. The letters-mostly to friends-detail (often exhaustively) Delany's observations on a wide variety of subjects: his daughter, hustling, sexual fantasy, a serial street murderer, money and IRS problems, analytical and philosophical discourses on many things academic, a nail-biting fetish, porn theater cruising, and his writing. In one passage, Delany makes the point that he does not offend very easily; what is said with care should be taken with care. Reading these letters, one senses that that is true. However, the sexually righteous may feel otherwise; several passages will offend some readers, regardless of the evident care Delany has given their construction. Recommended only for large public libraries.Robert L. Kelly, Fort Wayne, INCopyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Neil Gaiman, author of Stardust
1984 is a compulsively readable assemblage of letters that comprises an autobiographical portrait, a philosophical-literary education, a scatological voyage, and an intimate journey in the company of Chip Delany. I'm delighted it's finally going to be reaching a wider audience.


Book Description
The contents of 1984 are easy enough to describe: 57 letters and documents written in the mid-80s by novelist and critic Samuel R. Delany. Addressed to various friends, relatives, and colleagues, they present a vivid and exuberant mid-career portrait of a writer and thinker whose work has had an enormous influence across a startling range of literary and paraliterary genres, including science fiction, autobiography, pornography, historical fiction, comic books, literary criticism, queer theory, and more. All the trademark Delany touches can be found here rich descriptions of urban life, incisive social observation, sensuous and sophisticated tales of a life lived on the intersections of multiple social margins (Delany is gay and black), and, especially, passionate meditations on the intersection of aesthetics, politics, and philosophy that have made Delany a figure of paramount importance both for millions of readers, and, more specifically, for a collection of writers and thinkers a mere partial list of which reads like a Whos Who of contemporary intellectual culture: Fredric Jameson, Eve Sedgwick, Um-berto Eco (a key secondary character in the pages to follow), Donna Haraway, Henry Louis Gates, Charles Johnson, William Gibson, and, we learn here most intriguingly but perhaps least surprisingly Thomas Pynchon. -- from the introduction, by Kenneth R. James


From the Publisher
Voyant Publishing will donate a portion of the sales of 1984 to the Robert Drake Health Fund. Robert Drake a 37-year-old author, literary agent, and prominent figure of the Philadelphia gay community, was the victim of a life-threatening, hate-motivated assault at his home in Sligo, Ireland on January 30, 1999. Since that time, Robert Drake has battled many severe complications resulting from this vicious attack. In October of 1999, he was discharged to a Philadelphia apartment he shares with his lover, Ciaran Slevin. The pair are receiving support from a core group of volunteers and the local Quaker community in their efforts to generate the personnel and finances required to fund Robert Drakes lengthy, ongoing recovery. Robert Drake is a close friend of the publisher and was an instrumental figure in the launch of Voyant Publishing. For more information about the fund, contact Robert Drake Health Fund, c/o Arch St. Meeting, 320 Arch St., Philadelphia, PA 19106


About the Author
Samuel R. Delany is widely recognized as an intellectually gifted autodidact, literary iconoclast, memoirist and one of the finest science-fiction novelists of our time. He has since published 19 works of fiction, three memoirs, and seven books of literary and cultural criticism. He is currently a professor in the University at Buffalo's Department of English in the College of Arts and Sciences.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Many of Delany's novels (The Madman; Dhalgren) are colloquial, even conversational in tone and plot, packed tight with observations, alternate soliloquies and riffs. It's what makes them unique, as well as great literature. With the same grand sweep of scope, language and intelligence that has distinguished his novels, this collection of 56 letters, written primarily in 1984, details the author's interests, work, passions, obsessions and everyday life during George Orwell's apocalyptic year. With reflections on a wide range of topics--from the Wagner Ring cycle, the politics of book club publishing and the history of the novel to sadomasochism and AIDS--Delany's correspondence has an almost 18th-century feel. Of course, he also uses it to communicate personal information, frequently quoting poems, other people's letters and essays, and his own journals. He details his work and private life in full: one letter recommends the daughter of close friends for private school; a long, grueling, section in another letter details his problems with the IRS; another reflects on painful discussions of difficulties in a close friendship; others offer explicit descriptions of his sexual activity, both at home and in public places. A wonderful complement to his autobiographical writings (Heavenly Breakfast; The Motion of Light in Water), these letters are as much literature as any of Delany's fiction. As ever, his intelligence, kindness, empathy, critical skills and intense interest in writing, art and the world around him shine through. (June) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Library Journal