The Exceptional Optimist. "Positive" by David Menadue. [review]
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Date
2003-11
Authors
Reynolds, Robert
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Australian Book Review
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Abstract
Menadue is a charming storyteller, self-reflective and free of cant. He charts his uneven acceptance of his own homosexuality; the compartmentalisation of his life between work, family and sexuality; the exploration of sex in casual and fleeting encounters; and his ambivalence about romantic entanglements. Through his involvement in gay and trade union activism in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and with the good fortune of gay-friendly employment, Menadue grows in confidence. "Positive", although engagingly written, is not a poetic book, but it is an important testimony of one man’s survival of a latter-day plague.
Description
Keywords
Australian, Book Reviews, Publishing, HIV, Aids, Robert Reynolds, rural Victoria, Victorian AIDS Council, National AIDS conference, Methodism, male homosexual identity, Anglo-Australian
Citation
Reynolds, Robert 2003. The Exceptional Optimist. Review of "Positive" by David Menadue. 'Australian Book Review', No 256, November, 59-60.