The LGBTQ Policy Center at Roosevelt House is pleased to present a discussion of The Very Heart of It: New York Diaries, 1983-1994 by renowned novelist and critic Thomas Mallon. An exquisite collection of journal entries from the 1980s and ’90s, The Very Heart of It tracks a young, gay author’s literary coming-of-age—and brush with death—during the AIDS crisis in New York. He will be in conversation with author and former Roosevelt House curator of programming Bill Goldstein.
In 1983, Thomas Mallon was still an unknown literature professor at Vassar College. He spent his days traveling from Manhattan to campus, reviewing books to make ends meet, and searching the city for purpose and fulfillment. The AIDS epidemic was just beginning to surge in New York, the ever-bustling epicenter of literary culture and gay life, alive with parties, art, and sex. Though he didn’t know it yet, everything was about to change for Mallon.
Tracing his life day by day, Mallon’s diary entries powerfully evoke all that those years encompassed: the hookups, intensifying politics, personal tragedies, as well as his own blossoming literary success and eventual romantic happiness. The Very Heart of It is a brilliant look into the daily life of one of our most important literary figures, and a keepsake from a bygone era.
According to The New Yorker, The Very Heart of It “capture(s) the creative energy and lasting sorrow of a remarkable era;” and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Andrew Sean Greer has praised Mallon’s book as “illuminating, heartbreaking, hilarious, romantic, terrifying, thrilling, baffling, joyous—such is life!”
Panelists:
Thomas Mallon is the author of 12 novels, including Henry and Clara, Dewey Defeats Truman, Watergate, Landfall, Up With the Sun, and Finale: A Novel of the Reagan Years (which he appeared at Roosevelt House to discuss a decade ago). He is also the author of Fellow Travelers, which was recently adapted into a Showtime miniseries. A frequent contributor to The New Yorker, the New York Times Book Review, and other publications, he received his Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Harvard University. His honors include Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships, the National Book Critics Circle citation for criticism, and the Vursell prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for distinguished prose style. He has been literary editor of GQ and deputy chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and in 2012 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is Professor Emeritus of English at The George Washington University and lives in Washington, D. C.
Bill Goldstein reviews books on the weekly “Bill’s Books” segment on NBC’s Weekend Today in New York and was the founding editor of the New York Times books website. He worked as programming curator at Roosevelt House from 2010-2019. A graduate of the University of Chicago, Goldstein received a Ph.D. in English from the CUNY Graduate Center. He was awarded a 2024-25 Public Scholars grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities to support his work on the book. He is the author of The World Broke in Two: Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, and the Year that Changed Literature, published in 2017. He is currently writing a biography of playwright/activist Larry Kramer, to be published by Crown.
This event is co-sponsored by the CUNY LGBTQ Advisory Council and made possible in part by the generous support of the New York City Council and the CUNY LGBTQ Consortium.
