Love and Other Ruins

Debbie Feisst is the reference/Internet resources librarian in the
Information Services Division of the Edmonton Public Library.

Vancouver-based writer Karen X. Tulchinsky has written for numerous
magazines and newspapers, and her collection of short stories, In Her
Nature, was awarded the 1996 VanCity Book Prize. Now she brings us the
eagerly awaited sequel to her deeply funny yet bittersweet first novel,
Love Ruins Everything, which was named one of the Top Ten Books of 1998
by San Francisco’s Bay Area Reporter. While Love and Other Ruins picks
up where its bestselling predecessor left off, Tulchinsky correctly
assures the reader that her latest novel “can be enjoyed on its
own.”

Set in the pre-Y2K confusion that was 1999, Love and Other Ruins
follows the comic misadventures of Nomi Rabinovitch and her cousin
Henry. Nomi, a Canadian lesbian Jew living in San Francisco, works a
low-end job at a bar and is embroiled in a passionate long-distance
relationship with Julie, her activist girlfriend who lives in Toronto.
Julie desperately wants Nomi to move back to Toronto, but Nomi enjoys
her life, and the climate, in San Francisco. Nomi’s friends are a
colourful group; her roommate Betty worries about losing her touch after
spending a few nights alone, and her ex-girlfriend Sapphire dumped her
for a man. To top it all off, she and Julie’s intimate telephone
conversations are constantly being interrupted due to call waiting.

HIV-positive Henry lives in Toronto with his lover of five years,
Roger, and his father, Solly, a two-bit mobster who was recently
released from prison. Henry is active in Toronto’s gay activist
community and also spends a lot of time with his hilarious Jewish
family. Solly eats fried kippers every morning for breakfast and has
recently started dating Henry’s mother again, much to Henry’s
amazement. Henry has seen many friends succumb to AIDS; as his own
health is failing, he begins to come to terms with his own mortality.

Tulchinsky, alternating the chapters between Nomi and Henry, seamlessly
intersperses the two communities, Jewish and gay. This is a funny,
touching, and delightful story about love, family, and friendship.