The Wonderful World That Almost Was: A Life of Peter Hujar and Paul Thek by Andrew Durbin
Andrew Durbin picked a good title for his dual biography of the artist Paul Thek and the photographer Peter Hujar, sometime lovers and longtime friends. The Wonderful World That Almost Was is the story of their occasional work-life highs—Thek’s museum shows, Hujar’s magazine work—but also of the career costs of both men’s dismissal of mere commercial success. To complicate matters, they were part of a now vanished downtown-Manhattan scene, where pleasures and distractions were plentiful—sometimes too plentiful—but money? Not so much.
These days, Thek seems always on the verge of being forgotten. And Hujar has never quite gained the instant name recognition he deserves—though a recent film about him might help. Peter Hujar’s Day, directed by Ira Sachs, is based on a long conversation between Linda Rosenkrantz (played by Rebecca Hall) and Hujar (played by Ben Whishaw) in 1974. At Rosenkrantz’s request, Hujar describes what he had done the day before, which included photographing a peevish Allen Ginsberg for The New York Times and taking two naps. Granted, it’s not Lawrence of Arabia, but thanks to Whishaw’s sultry performance as Hujar, it’s oddly absorbing.
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