dedication to Thek, 179, 265–66, 466
publication and reception, 122–23, 229, 240
summary and themes, 266–71, 561–62
“Against Interpretation,” 11–12, 266–67, 425
“Age of Criticism,” 204, 225
aggression and photography, 6–7, 350
Agnelli, Marella, 239
Aguilera-Hellweg, Max, 495
Aida (film), 692
AIDS and Its Metaphors, 374, 422, 466, 511–12, 516–21
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), 514
AIDS/HIV, 459–73, 513–14
causes of, 462–64
gay activism and language, 459–60, 462
New York Times article, 460–61
terminology, 461–62
Thek’s death, 466–70
“The Way We Live Now,” 464–65, 467–73, 475, 519
Akhmatova, Anna, 386
À la recherche du temps perdu (Proust), 333
Alcoholics Anonymous, 448, 647–48
alcoholism
of Annie’s mother, 491–92
of Mildred, 9, 31, 33–34, 35–36, 45, 447–48, 476, 755n
in The Volcano Lover, 543
“X, The Scourge,” 194–95, 447–48
Alfred, Chester, 324
Algerian Civil War, 165, 199
Alice in Bed (play), 570–71, 769–70n
alimony, 171
All About Eve (film), 108–9, 123, 343–44, 546
Allen, Woody, 169, 482, 649
Altman, Dennis, 417
American Academy of Arts and Letters, 485
American Association of University Women, 144–45, 254
American Foundation for AIDS Research, 462
American Jewish Committee, 173
American Repertory Theater, 571
Amherst College, 363
Amiran, Minda Rae, 109–10, 121, 135, 146, 186, 369, 411, 666–67
amphetamines (speed), 242–44, 246, 409, 455–58
analytical philosophy, 153
Anders, Günther, 188
Anders, Jarosław, 41–42, 388–89, 431–32, 434
And the Band Played On (Shilts), 519
Angels in America (play), 519
Anger, Kenneth, 89, 355
anti-Americanism, 306–7
anti-Jewish pogroms in Russia, 212
antinomianism, 140, 323
Antioch Review, 202
anti-Semitism, 94, 116–17, 203–4, 390
anti-Vietnam movement, 273–74, 276, 283, 286, 300, 309–10, 492
aphorisms, 127, 290, 381, 538
Aquinas, Thomas, 80, 387
Arab-Israeli conflict, 344–45, 644–46
Arafat, Yasser, 683
Arbus, Diane, 352–59, 497, 501, 650
Arcade, The (newspaper), 62, 63
Arenas, Reinaldo, 326
Arendt, Hannah, 41, 188, 198, 207, 223, 320, 398, 424
Aristotle, 80, 83, 94, 95, 704–5
Arizona Inn, 45
Arizona Sunshine School, 45, 48
Armenian Genocide, 1–4, 13–14
Armstrong, Lance, 376–77
Arnold, Fritz, 679
Arnold, Matthew, 268
Artaud, Antonin, 137, 267, 269, 297
Antonin Artaud: Selected Writings (Sontag, ed.), 140–41, 202
theater and spectacle, 140–41, 184, 293, 572–73, 578, 702
“the unthinkable,” 141, 342, 418
Art Directors Club Medal, 226
Art in America, 508
Ashbery, John, 42, 431
Asti, Adriana, 569–70
As You Desire Me (film), 569
Athill, Diana, 249
Atlantic, The (magazine), 338
Atlas, James, 229
Auction of Souls (film), 1–3, 18
Auden, W. H., 217, 243
Augustine of Hippo, 94
Auschwitz concentration camp, 42, 207, 292, 559
Avedon, Richard, 5, 238, 700
Aviary, The (film), 440
Babbitt, Milton, 269
Bachmann, Ingeborg, 136
Baez, Joan, 562
Bajrović, Izudin, 565, 574–78, 581
Balfour Declaration, 344
Balzac, Honoré de, 7, 257, 438, 531
Bancroft, Anne, 547
Bari, Italy, 608–9, 617, 618
Barnes, Djuna, Nightwood, 83–84, 89, 99–100, 101–2, 196, 317
Barthelme, Donald, 417, 483, 484
Barthes, Roland, 203, 267, 269, 385, 394, 425
Bataille, Georges, 163, 296–98, 401
Baudrillard, Jean, 425
Baykal, Sheyla, 468
Beardsley, Aubrey, 215
Beatles, the, 266
Beato, Felice, 671
Beatrix (Balzac), 438
Beatty, Warren, 284–85
“Beauty: How Will It Change Next?,” 395
Beauty of Men, The (Holleran), 519
Beauvoir, Simone de, 159–60, 161, 335–36
Beckett, Samuel, 14, 161, 260, 567
Waiting for Godot, 14, 573–84
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 695–96, 700
Behold Goliath (Chester), 250
“Being-as-Playing-a-Role,” 237, 383, 605
Bellow, Saul, 208–9, 483, 524
Belushi, John, 503
Benefactor, The, 187–98, 200, 220, 312, 597
Cornell and, 247, 248
dedication to Irene, 217, 221
homosexuality and, 195–97, 628
influences on, 312
publication and reception, 221, 223, 224, 276
publishing contract for, 214
summary and themes, 7–8, 188–94, 195–98, 420, 518, 637
Benjamin, Walter, 113, 139, 142, 381–85, 388, 405, 425, 536
“Under the Sign of Saturn,” 381–84
Bennington College, 342–43
Bergé, Pierre, 581–82
Bergman, Ingmar, 292–94, 308, 310, 321, 566
Berlin, 523–24, 568, 626, 656, 657
Berlin, Isaiah, 115, 156, 178, 317, 433
Berlin Olympics (1936), 391
Berlin Wall, 523, 551, 704
Bernstein, Leonard, 5, 238, 376
Bethune, Norman, 41
“Biennale on Dissent,” 389–90
Biesenbach, Klaus, 648
Bin Laden, Osama, 659
birth control pill, 395
bisexuality, 83, 90, 128, 129–30, 628
“Bi’s Progress, The,” 90–91
Black, Roger, 492, 498, 499, 500, 502
Black Mountain College, 84–85
blankness, 321–22, 331, 606
Bleecker Street Cinema (New York City), 243
Blin, Roger, 577
Blomberg, Sven, 157
Blondie, 597
Bobst Library (New York City), 370
body and mind, 9–11, 119–20, 124–25, 216, 328–29, 342, 517–20
Boetticher, Budd, 262
Bogotá International Book Fair, 675–76
Bolaño, Roberto, 392
Bold, Alf, 523
bone-marrow transplant, 688–95
Bonnie and Clyde (film), 284–85
Borland, Polly, 650–51
“Borland’s Babies,” 650–51
Borrowed Time (Monette), 519
Bosch, Hieronymus, 161
Bosnian War, 13, 552–67, 573–95, 617–20. See also Siege of Sarajevo
“Why Are We in Kosovo?,” 618–19
Bourgois, Dominique, 678
Bowles, Jane, 250
Bowles, Paul, 250
Boyers, Peg, 545
Boyers, Robert, 97–98, 451–52, 545
Boyle Heights, 18, 25
Brady Bunch, The (TV show), 56
Brandeis University, 116–17
Brecht, Bertolt, 67, 637
Brel, Jacques, 249
Brentano, Margherita von, 136
Bresson, Robert, 161, 267
Breton, André, 269
British Concession,
28
Broch, Hermann, 384
Brodsky, Joseph, 385–90, 441, 482
death of, 596
Nobel Prize of, 213
Susan and, 255, 387–90, 429–30, 536, 596, 649, 697
Town Hall 1982 meeting, 429–30, 432–33
Brooks, Peter, 267–68
Brooks, Van Wyck, 206
Brother Carl (film), 327–30, 332, 335
Brown, Norman O., 201, 269
Brown, Paul, 19, 21–22, 35, 50–51, 404, 475, 476
Brown, Tina, 504–5, 622
Browning, Robert, 83
Browning, Tod, 355
Bryant, Anita, 396
Buckley, William F., 546
Buñuel, Luis, 189
Burch, Noël, 161, 162–63, 241, 335–36
Burke, Kenneth, 98–99
Burns, John, 560, 561, 563–64, 581, 587, 614–15
Burroughs, William, 277
Burrows, Larry, 671–72
Burton, Richmond, 508, 527, 528, 530, 590–91, 647, 648
Burton, Sybil, 5, 238
Bush, George H.W., 513–14, 515
Bush, George W., 656, 657–58, 660–62, 669–70, 685–86
Butor, Michel, 267
Cactus Press, 49–50, 276, 302
Café Bonaparte (Paris), 334
Café de Flore (Paris), 160
Cage, John, 84, 99, 261–62, 269, 290, 292, 442, 572
Cahiers du Cinéma, 311–12
Calisher, Hortense, 485
Callas, Maria, 600, 606
camp. See also “Notes on ‘Camp’”
definition of, 6, 8, 11, 199
Hippolyte’s dreams, 7–8
Camp Arrowhead, 29–30
Camus, Albert, 161, 190–91, 267
cancer. See also Illness as Metaphor
of Mildred, 476–77
of Susan, 43, 358–59, 366–72, 375–78, 405–6, 611–15, 622, 681–84, 693–97
Candide (Voltaire), 146, 190
Canetti, Elias, 139, 213, 383–85, 392, 405, 540, 703
Cannes Film Festival, 332–33
Caputo, Philip, 272
Caracole (White), 413, 434
Caravaggio, 232
Carnegie Hall (New York City), 700
Caro, Robert, 489
Carroll, Lewis, 356
Cartagena de Indias, 676
Cartier-Bresson, Henri, 700
Cash, Rosanne, 665–66
Cassinelli, Claudio, 440
Castle, Terry, 236–37, 544, 589–90, 614, 648
Castro, Fidel, 172, 200, 326, 430, 675–76
Catalina Junior High, 45
Cavalli, Patrizia, 318, 319, 320
Céline, Louis-Ferdinand, 197
Center for Intercultural Documentation, 365
Chaikin, Joseph, 253
Chandler, Greg, 527, 530, 591–92, 614
Chandler, Raymond, 59
Château de la Muette, 332
Chatwin, Bruce, 466
chemotherapy, 358, 367–68, 404, 406, 688, 689–90
Chester, Alfred, 192, 249–52, 285–86, 324, 467, 533
Chicago. See also University of Chicago
family trip to, 80
Childs, Lucinda
background of, 441–44
Susan’s mother and, 445–46, 478
Susan’s relationship with, 440–47, 450, 452, 613, 649
Unguided Tour (film), 440–42
China, 27–28, 41, 337–38
Mildred in, 17–23, 337
Nixon’s visit to, 309, 337
“Project for a Trip to China,” 338–40, 404, 418, 419, 551–52
Chinkhan, Sookhee, 684
Christmas, 38, 42
CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), 212, 325, 430
Cioran, E. M., 139, 286, 287–92, 303, 443, 597
Citizens for Decent Literature, 234–35
City College of New York, 200, 202
Civilization and Its Discontents (Freud), 63–64, 108
Civil Rights Act, 275, 284, 423
civil rights movement, 224–25, 271
Cixous, Hélène, 425
Clark Air Base, 492
Cleese, John, 153
Cleveland Clinic, 366
Clinton, Bill, 617–18, 619–20, 701
Clinton, Hillary, 620, 669
Cluster B personality disorders, 456
Coats, Dan, 678
cocaine, 451–52, 498, 503
Cocteau, Jean, 232, 331, 336
Coetzee, J. M., 678, 753n
Cohen, Elliot, 172–73
Cohen, Judith Sontag
birth and childhood of, 20, 23–24, 43, 44, 46–49
father’s death, 26–27
marriage to Morrie, 403–4, 477
mother’s relationship with, 22–27, 31–32, 51, 52–53, 75, 112, 476–77
Susan’s relationship with, 46–48, 108, 170, 185–86, 364, 477–78, 531, 630, 690, 700
in Tucson, 44, 46–47, 49, 700
Cohen, Mickey, 18–19
Cohen, Morrie, 403–4, 477
Cold War, 212, 272
Collier’s (magazine), 79–80
Columbia Religion Collection, 201
Columbia Spectator, 204
Columbia University, 142, 200–204, 210, 246, 642
Columbia University uprising of 1968, 572
Come tu mi vuoi (play), 569–70
Commentary, 121, 172–75, 425
Common Core, 94–95
communism, 207, 385, 388, 429–30, 453, 551, 552
Town Hall meeting (February 1982), 429, 432–35, 437
Comte, Auguste, 287
Concorde, 370, 665
Condé Nast, 504, 663
Confessions of a Mask (Mishima), 196–97
Confucius, 685
conservatism, 423, 427
Copeland, Roberta, 229
Corcoran, W. W., 442
Corcoran Gallery, 442
Cornell, Joseph, 198, 246–49, 260, 265, 418, 440, 441, 700
Coronet Theater (Los Angeles), 89
Corriere della Sera, 629
Cosmopolitan Club (New York City), 443–44
counterculture of the 1960s, 224–25
Cozarinsky, Edgardo, 328
Crane, Hart, 98–99
Crawford, Cindy, 701
Crawford, Joan, 19, 236–37, 606
“credibility gap,” 299, 303, 305
Croatia, 553–54
Cromwell, Oliver, 141
Crosby, Bing, 57
Crouse, Timothy, 493–94
Cruz, Juan, 675, 676
Cuba, 172, 199–200, 217, 272, 429–31
“Some Thoughts on the Right Way (for Us) to Love the Cuban Revolution,” 324–26
Cuban Revolution, 325–26, 430, 675–76, 704
Cultural Event, 571–73
Cultural Revolution, 338–39, 340
Cultural Studies, 263
Cunningham, Merce, 84, 261–62, 269, 442–43, 444
Curie, Eve, 40–41
Curie, Marie, 40–41, 342
Curran, James, 461
Czechoslovakia, 553
Dachau concentration camp, 165
Dahl, Roald, 488
Dakota building (New York City), 503
Dalí, Salvador, 189
Dartmouth College, 342
Davis, Bette, 232
Davis-Monthan Army Air Field, 50
Dayton Accords, 585, 617
Dead Sea Scrolls, 140
Death in Venice (Mann), 83
Death Kit, 46, 202, 276–82, 293, 334–35, 637
Death of Ivan Ilyich, The (Tolstoy), 695
“death of the author,” 394
“Debriefing,” 419–20
“Decisions,” 115–16
“Decline of Book Reviewing, The” (Hardwick), 217
De Gaulle, Charles, 165
De Kooning, Willem, 11, 425
DeLano, Sharon, 508, 511–12, 657–58, 666, 677–78, 687, 689, 692, 697, 700
Deleuze, Gilles, 425
DeLillo, Don, 489
Del Pezzo, Anna Carlotta, 317–22, 335, 537, 569
background of, 318–19
Susan’s relationship with, 317–22, 327, 334–35, 406, 440
Democratic National Convention (1964), 283
DeMott, Benjamin, 262
Deren, Maya, 89
Derrida, Jacques, 198, 425
Desastres de la guerra (Goya), 672
Descartes, René, 7
Desclos, Anne, 163, 296–98
Desert Sanatorium, 44
De Swaan, Abram, 545
Détruire, dit-elle (Duras), 333
Deutsch, Roger, 407–10
David and Susan, 364–65, 409–10, 414–15, 449
Susan’s cancer, 366–67, 406–7, 408–9
Diaghilev, Sergei, 441
DiCaprio, Leonardo, 701
Dickens, Charles, 388
Dickinson, Emily, 570
Didion, Joan, 424, 484, 489
Dilonardo, Paolo, 594–95, 608–9, 690, 700
Diva, the, 247–48, 599–609
Divorcing (Taubes), 220, 322, 323, 327
Dixie Chicks, 670
Doctor Faustus (Mann), 72, 83
“Doctor Jekyll,” 420–21
Doctorow, E. L., 433, 483–84, 488, 489
Donadio, Stephen, 370
Donne, John, 247
Donoughue, Bernard, 152–56, 164, 199, 242, 274–75, 325
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 387, 426, 595, 672, 674
“Double Standard of Aging, The,” 394
Douglas, Kirk, 319
Doyle, Arthur Conan, 126
dreams, 7–9, 12, 125–26, 185, 199, 216, 600, 617
The Benefactor, 188, 189, 190–92, 247, 518
Duchamp, Marcel, 259–60, 292, 615
Dudley, David A., 204
Duet for Cannibals (film), 308–9, 312–14, 327–29, 335, 408, 420, 569, 744n
“Dummy, The,” 420
Dupont, Claude, 332
Duraković, Ferida, 563, 566–67, 576, 586, 587–88
Duras, Marguerite, 333
Dylan, Bob, 202, 266
Eccles, Andrew, 493, 494, 495–96, 500
Edelheit, Martha, 29–30
Edelheit, Martie, 96, 97, 242, 533
education of Susan
Arizona Sunshine School, 45, 48
Catalina Junior High, 45
Forest Hills PS 144, 39–40
Harvard University, 134–35, 145–46, 253–54
Mansfeld Junior High, 45, 52
North Hollywood High, 62–64, 73, 79, 81, 89
Oxford University, 145, 152–56, 199
University of California, Berkeley, 81–83, 86–87, 88, 95
University of Chicago, 29, 87, 88, 93–103, 110–11
University of Connecticut, 133–34
Egypt, Yom Kippur War, 344, 349, 704
Eighteen Happenings in Six Parts (Kaprow), 183, 184
Ein Gev, 344
Einstein, Albert, 87, 117
Einstein on the Beach (opera), 441, 442, 752n
Eisenhower, Dwight, 223–24, 422
Ekman, Gösta, 309–10, 312–13
Ekmanner, Agneta, 308–9, 310, 312–13, 329
Elaine’s (New York City), 238
Electra complex, 137, 331
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