Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham is a novel consisting of three distinct stories set in New York City across multiple eras. In the Machine follows a boy in 19th century New York City after his older brother Simon dies in a factory accident. The Children’s Crusade follows a woman in present day New York City as she investigates a potential domestic terrorism conspiracy. Like Beauty follows an artificially constructed human as he struggles for survival and meaning, beginning in a New York City of the distant future. This novel explores themes of technology, nature, mortality, and interpersonal connection.
Throughout the 1980s and most of the 1990s, critics usually considered Michael Cunningham to be just another of the growing number of novelists chronicling the experience of gay Americans in the age o...
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Michael Cunningham