Gerald

Gerald is the novel’s central character and protagonist. In his mid-late forties at the time the novel begins and is set (1995), he is a gay man of his generation – that is, a man who came of sexual age during a period (starting in the mid-1960’s) when sexual freedom in general, and for gay men in particular, was a new and somewhat intoxicating experience. For many gay men, including Gerald, there were a lot of partners without a lot of ties or commitments: there was a sense of gay life being one long party, particularly in New York City, where Gerald lived and worked. It is important to note, however, that that sense of sexual freedom, again in general and for gay men in particular, came to an end in the mid-1980’s, with the emergence of HIV-AIDS as a deadly consequence of promiscuous, unprotected, intoxicant-fueled sexual...