The Way We Live Now

The Way We Live Now Summary | Detailed Summary

The story opens when the main character, a thirty-eight year old man, has only begun to suspect he has a serious illness. The two most important elements in the story -the man and the disease from which he is dying-are never named. As the disease progresses, we learn very little about the main character, but we do learn a great deal about his inner circle of friends. It is through their conversations that the personalities and actions unfold, with the narration giving the sense of something overheard, rather than directly shared; we follow the developments while they are passed from one friend to another in hurried exchanges and whispered confidences.

During this first scene, while several friends discuss the man's symptoms, they acknowledge he must be very frightened, since he has given up smoking. Despite having lived with a variety of unnerving symptoms for many months -- weight loss, fatigue, sensory changes -- he has put off visiting his doctor, not wanting to hear it said aloud what the already suspects: he is dying. The man tells his friends that if he is really sick, he will find out soon enough. Underneath his calm is panic, which prompts him to confide his fears to his closest friends.

This confidence sets off a somewhat frantic flurry of early exchanges, filled with questions and conjecture, during which it is difficult to tell one speaker from another. Slowly, though, individual personalities begin to emerge when each of the friends and former lovers reacts in his or her way -- first to the news itself, and then to the day-to-day changes brought on by the effects of the man's illness.

In the next scene, the friends begin visiting the man in the hospital, where he has been taken, presumably after a worsening of his condition. Most of his friends visit often and are emphatic that he needs these visits for his emotional well being.

Not all the friends find it easy. Aileen, for example, is in love with the man, and naturally wants to be near him. Yet, she considers herself a coward because she finds it so hard to visit him -- especially when he is in the hospital, which reminds her of the fatal nature of his disease. Later, she admits she equates the time spent with the man as "learning how to die," and says she is not ready to do that. At the same time, because of the intensity of her feelings, she resents those who are not afraid to witness illness and pain up close. Aileen lets her fear of not knowing what to say keep her from saying much of anything at all, and she channels her frustration into jealousy toward the circle of friends.

The transition from the unknown to the undeniable shifts the members of the group into an unofficial hierarchy. Whereas, before his illness, the man may have classified someone as a close friend or just an acquaintance based on the length and type of their previous relationship, he now sees people in light of how they treat him. Each character embodies one or more typical ways we respond to such shattering news. When the man finally learns the nature of his disease, his friend Stephen immediately sets about learning everything he can about the illness, arming himself with a battery of facts. Stephen reads the latest medical journals from the United States and France, the two countries doing the most-publicized research on the disease, keeping up-to-date on the latest theories and drug protocols, but it is not enough for Stephen to gather data; he is also one of the main conduits of information to the others, and, more than once, Stephen notes he is exhausted by the obsession he seems to have with keeping everyone else informed.

Not everyone welcomes Stephen's scientific approach to the situation. One taking the opposite tack is Greg, who finds he can no longer bear to read anything at all about the illness or the people who have been affected by it. Like Robert, who cannot bring himself to visit the man often, Greg seems to believe by avoiding the difficult moments and confrontations, he can alter reality -- the classic reaction of 'ignore it, and maybe it will go away.' Ellen is ashamed to find herself morbidly fascinated by the illness and the whole concept of death and dying, and likens herself to a Londoner during the Blitz, frightened, yet feeling all the more alive because of her fears.

Some of the man's friends become philosophical, some become practical. Tanya, a former lover, and Jan, an old friend, deal with the knowledge that their friend has an incurable disease by busying themselves with practical matters. They concern themselves with the little things, such as bringing cherished objects from the man's apartment to brighten up his hospital room. Xavier and Frank discuss how the man's illness changes not only the man's life but the lives of everyone close to him, forever altering the dynamics of the relationships among them. Former lovers, once jealous of each other and caught up in "petty grievances," find themselves helping each other through a difficult time. Although the strengthened bonds deteriorate along with the man's health, it is clear to at least some of them that their lives will never be the same.

Several of the man's friends note that the man's illness signals the 'end' in more ways than one. Ira, Victor, and Lewis express both fear and regret, noting that even if the man should miraculously recover, he will always be a carrier, and he will never again feel the same. It marks, says Ira, "the end of bravado, the end of folly, the end of trusting life, the end of taking life for granted." In their friend's death sentence they see their own. Lewis is especially distraught, knowing he stands a very good chance of having been infected by the man.

The man begins to keep a diary, though he lets no one read it. His friends theorize that it helps him to picture himself as having a future, one in which he will be well enough to read about his illness as something he endured in his past. The man does admit that he often pictures himself back in his penthouse, with the diary tucked far away in the drawer of his stupendous Majorelle desk.

The friends discuss the man's treatments and the side effects of the medications he takes, and reflect on how their friend's illness has altered their own lives and the relationship among his friends and former lovers. One friend, Ira, jokes that they are all side effects. Their increased and newly intense presence in his life, and in each others' lives, is a direct result of his illness.

Predictably, the situation brings out the caretaker in some. Kate, who has always fancied herself in kind of a "big sister" role to the man, now is all that and more, encouraging the others, showering the man with gifts and small kindnesses. The strongest reaction among the friends is also the most polarizing. Quentin, the former lover who sees himself as the man's closest, true friend, becomes possessive and controlling. When the man is sent home from the hospital after his first serious bout of illness, it is Quentin who moves in to take care of him until he has recovered enough to live on his own again. While the man was aware of who came to visit and who did not, Quentin becomes almost rabid in his ranking of who is a real friend and who is not, seemingly awarding points for the number and types of visits they make. Not surprisingly, Quentin's role as self-appointed gatekeeper does not endear him to his friends. At times, they do not know whether to regard him as the most selfless or the most selfish member of the circle.

The man begins receiving the newly accepted drug treatment for the disease. Several of his friends suggest alternative treatments and new approaches to his illness, such as visualization therapy and a macrobiotic diet. Ironically, Stephen points out that the man's willingness to say the name of the disease out loud (the disease that is not mentioned by name in the story), to say the word as though it were just another word "like boy or gallery or cigarette," is an encouraging sign that the man is willing to fight for his life.

The friends discuss how the stigma of the disease and the conditions of living with it are changing, because scientists learn more about the nature of the illness, its causes, and how it is transmitted. They point out that some of the initial hysteria and prejudice has waned to the point where people -- the friends and former lovers included -- are no longer afraid to hug him or kiss him lightly on the mouth. They do discuss the nature of the risk though, and point out that the man's former lovers appear to be at greater risk. Another friend, Ellen, rightly points out that "everyone is at risk, everyone who has a sexual life, because sexuality is a chain that links each of us to many others, unknown others, and now the great chain of being has become a chain of death as well."

Indeed, we learn through the many conversations that many of the friends have been lovers not only of the man but of each other. The friends say that the "utopia of friendship" that has formed around the man and his illness has brought them together: "we are the family he's founded, without meaning to." They discuss the man's pre-diagnosis behavior, and his "risky" behavior: smoking, using drugs, and deliberately having unprotected sex with both men and women. Several friends note that they tried to caution him to be more careful, but he refused on the grounds that "sex is too important."

The man's health continues to improve, and Quentin moves out of the man's apartment. While his health remains fairly stable, the friends learn that two remote acquaintances, one in Houston and another in Paris, have been diagnosed with the same illness. Not long after that, a friend in the immediate circle of friends, and one of the man's former lovers, is also stricken, and rushed to the hospital with a perilously high fever and respiratory distress. Most of the friends believe they should not share this news with the man, thinking it would derail his recovery and dampen his spirits. When they make up a story to explain Max's absence from the man's life, the man does not question it. By then, the number of people visiting and the frequency of their visits has considerably waned, despite the fact, or perhaps because the man has come to take the friends' presence for granted. The friends begin to squabble amongst themselves, competing for his favor, and old tensions resurface.

Once again, the man's health fails, and he is hospitalized. Quentin devises a "visiting book" to schedule visitors, once again taking on the role of gatekeeper. The others resent this but go along. The man begins to talk about his impending death, discussing his fears and his unexpected exaltation, admitting that "calamity is an amazing high." His friend Xavier brings him an eighteenth-century Guatemalan statue of Saint Sebastian, saying that where he comes from, Saint Sebastian is venerated as a protector against pestilence. They discuss the symbolism of a beautiful youth bound to a tree and pierced by arrows, seemingly oblivious to the pain, and Xavier points out that while most people forget the fact, the story goes that when the Christian women came to bury the martyr, they found him still alive and nursed him back to health. The man reacts by saying that he thought Saint Sebastian died in the story.

By the story's end, the man is once again in the hospital. While the friends are readying his penthouse for his return home, something in the tone of their conversations, and in the change in his demeanor -- he's so "sweet" and "nice," they say, almost complainingly -- suggest that it may not be a long remission. Even the man's handwriting has deteriorated to the point where it is all but illegible. Several of his friends discuss the man's impending death in metaphorical terms, noting the power of the word "still," as in still alive. In the last line of the story, his friend Stephen assures us that the man is still alive.