{"product_id":"the-wonderful-world-that-almost-was-a-life-of-peter-hujar-and-paul-thek-9780374609559","title":"The Wonderful World That Almost Was: A Life of Peter Hujar and Paul Thek","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"As official narratives everywhere strain and crack, Peter and Paul--and Durbin--offer a desperately needed alternative way of seeing and being.\" --Benjamin Moser, author of \u003ci\u003eSusan Sontag: Her Life and Work, \u003c\/i\u003ewinner of the Pulitzer Prize \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"[Andrew Durbin] has made of these lives and these times a jam-packed poem in prose. It's like a trip with these guys, without pulling tight at the ending, just death.\" --Eileen Myles, author of \u003ci\u003eA \"Working Life\u003c\/i\u003e\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe cinematic, never-before-told story of two intimately entangled artists who redefined queer art. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhen Paul Thek met Peter Hujar in the winter of 1956 in Coral Gables, Florida, a slow-simmering connection began to burn. Thek, twenty-three and living in Miami, was handsome and itching to make it as a painter; in the twenty-two-year-old Hujar, a shy, sensual photographer, he'd found a kindred spirit. By 1960, they were dating and living in New York, beginning decades of sex, love, competition, and reconciliation--an entanglement that changed American art forever. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSurrounded by a robust creative scene populated by Susan Sontag, Andy Warhol, Fran Lebowitz, John Waters, and David Wojnarowicz, Thek and Hujar's profoundly influential careers, from the early 1960s through the late 1980s, differed as much as the men themselves. The unpredictable and often overlooked Thek crafted visceral installations and sculptures, while Hujar, celebrated and sociable, took penetrating portraits of his world, queer and otherwise. Yet even at their most estranged, and even after their deaths from AIDS, both men were united by a pursuit of liberation--from artistic and sexual limits, from anything short of changing the world. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAndrew Durbin's \u003ci\u003eThe Wonderful World That Almost Was\u003c\/i\u003e unravels, for the first time, the intertwined stories and work of two boundaryburning, paradigm-tilting, never more relevant American artists. Weaving together deft art criticism with moving portraits of both men's inner lives, and assembled with exhaustive research, Durbin's book is an ode to a lost but still-living world--and two men who defined it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Andrew Durbin\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Farrar, Straus and Giroux\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 04\/14\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 496\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.61lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.21h x 6.35w x 1.34d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780374609559\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e 03\/01\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAndrew Durbin \u003c\/b\u003eis the editor in chief of \u003ci\u003efrieze \u003c\/i\u003emagazine. He is the author of the novels \u003ci\u003eMacArthur Park, \u003c\/i\u003e which was a finalist for the Believer Book Award, and \u003ci\u003eSkyland\u003c\/i\u003e, and served as the editor for Kevin Killian's posthumous work \u003ci\u003eFascination\u003c\/i\u003e. His writing has appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eLondon Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Believer\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Paris Review\u003c\/i\u003e online, \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e, and elsewhere. He lives in London.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"booksdeli.com","offers":[{"title":"Andrew Durbin \/ Hardcover \/ English","offer_id":47858850168989,"sku":"9780374609559","price":56.84,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0619\/5648\/9373\/files\/img_a80d669f-b663-4d9a-861d-03cd8b98312b.jpg?v=1776861954","url":"https:\/\/booksdeli.com\/products\/the-wonderful-world-that-almost-was-a-life-of-peter-hujar-and-paul-thek-9780374609559","provider":"booksdeli.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}