That this is probably not how the book will be handled, reviewed, shelved, sold and read makes the novel all the more necessary and true.’ Lambda Book Report ‘An important work of American literature. ‘Schulman crafts a piercing investigation into desire, mores, and the law.’ Publishers Weekly

Sarah Schulman is the author of eleven books, including the novel The Child 2006. Rat Bohemia won the Ferro Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction and was named one of the 100 Best Gay and Lesbian Novels of All Time by the Publishing Triangle. Alternately elegiac, defiant, and funny, Rat Bohemia is an expansive novel about how one can cope with loss and heal the wounds of the past by reinventing oneself in the city. Together, they seek new ways to be truthful and honest about their lives as others around them avert their glances. Navigating the currents of the city are three friends: Rita Mae, a rat exterminator Killer, a career plant waterer and David, an HIV positive writer. Edmund White, The New York Times Book ReviewFirst published in 1995, this award winning novel is a bold, achingly honest story set in the Rat Bohemia of New York City, whose huddled mas*ses include gay men and lesbians abandoned by their families and forced to find new bonds with one another in the wake of this loss. It blows the traditional novel off its hinges. Tony Kushner My surrender to Rat Bohemia is a testimonial to its gimlet eyed accuracy, its zero degree honesty… More persuasively than any other contemporary novelist, Sarah Schulman traces the ways in which the disenfranchiseme*nt that begins as a political evil pervades every aspect of life, from the metaphysical and spiritual to the most intimate moments of two people together.

Empathy by Sarah Schulman