People in Trouble

For the 1953 book, see Wilhelm Reich.
People In Trouble
AuthorSarah Schulman
PublisherE. P. Dutton
Publication date
January 31, 1989

People In Trouble is a 1989 novel by Sarah Schulman.

Plot

The novel includes several intersecting storylines. In one, a woman named Molly falls in love with Kate, a married painter. Kate is unwilling to leave her husband Peter, and instead hopes to maintain a relationship with both him and Molly. Molly begins working with an AIDS activist group called Justice to stop Ronald Horne, a real estate developer and conservative politician who intends to evict tenants with AIDS and further marginalize them.

Writing and background

The novel was based on Schulman's experience of having a romantic relationship with a married woman,[1] who held homophobic sentiments. Schulman said that she wrote the book about a "fantasy" in which the married woman would become less homophobic and more socially aware after seeing the impact of the AIDS crisis.[2] Many other aspects of the novel are based on Schulman's life. The fictional activist group Justice bears many similarities to the AIDS advocacy group ACT UP,[3] of which Schulman was a member.[4] In a 2019 column, Schulman noted that she had completed the manuscript for People In Trouble a few years before ACT UP was founded. She stated that parallels between a small protest at St. Patrick's Cathedral in the novel and the Stop the Church protest organized by ACT UP on December 10, 1989 were coincidental.[5]

The novel's antagonist Ronald Horne is based on real estate developer and politician Donald Trump, and Schulman recalled visiting Trump Tower while writing the novel and being disgusted. The novel deals with themes of gentrification, which she later addressed in the non-fiction book The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination (2012).[3] Horne's actions in the novel serve to illustrate the interaction between gentrification, homelessness, and the AIDS epidemic.[6]

Reception

The novel was published on Jan. 31, 1989 by E. P. Dutton.[7]

Publishers Weekly gave the novel a positive review for its "witty, angry, and anguished" story.[8] Kirkus Reviews wrote that "Half raw sensuality and street scenes, half political manifesto, this passionate, raggedy tale will cheer Shulman's considerable readership."[7]

Adaptations

While writing the novel, Schulman worked with Stewart Wallace and Michael Korie to adapt it into an opera. The opera's director cancelled the project after deciding that its content was objectionable. Schulman and Wallace sent copies of the manuscript and novel to other opera houses in the hopes of having it adapted. They pitched the opera as "a West Side Story for the '90s" and "a modern La bohème". They were rejected by every opera house and had abandoned the opera by 1992. Wallace and Korie later wrote Harvey Milk together.[9]

Plagiarism accusations

Schulman has accused Jonathan Larson of stealing characters, scenes and ideas from her novel and using them in his 1996 musical Rent.[1][10] She gave the musical a negative review at the time of its premiere, criticizing it for marginalizing queer perspectives and focusing on heterosexual points of view.[11] Sarah Swedberg wrote a retrospective review in Nursing Clio that argued the book presented a more historically accurate but less "feel good" portrayal of AIDS activism in New York. Swedberg noted that People In Trouble centered the marginalization of queer people, while Rent softened and sanitized it.[12]

References

  1. ^ a b Thomas, June (2005-11-23). "Sarah Schulman". Slate. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved 2026-03-14.
  2. ^ Bendix, Trish (2019-01-28). "How "Rent" Straightwashed Queer Lives and AIDS Activism". Them. Retrieved 2026-03-15.
  3. ^ a b Baker, Peter C. (2017-09-21). "An Out-of-Print Novel About Gay Activism, with a Trump Stand-In as Its Villain". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2026-03-14.
  4. ^ "Sarah Schulman, The Art of Nonfiction No. 14". Vol. Spring 2026, no. 255. 2026. ISSN 0031-2037. Retrieved 2026-03-15.
  5. ^ Rubin, Lena (2021-01-05). "'People in Trouble': A Case Study of the AIDS Crisis in Historical Memory - Village Preservation". Retrieved 2026-03-15.
  6. ^ Rubin, Lena (2021-01-05). "'People in Trouble': A Case Study of the AIDS Crisis in Historical Memory - Village Preservation". Retrieved 2026-03-15.
  7. ^ a b "People In Trouble". Kirkus Reviews. January 1, 1989.
  8. ^ "People in Trouble by Sarah Schulman". Publishers Weekly. January 1, 1990. Retrieved 2026-03-14.
  9. ^ Schulman, Sarah (1998). Stagestruck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America. Duke University Press. pp. 7–9. ISBN 978-0-8223-2264-1.
  10. ^ Walker, Harron. "The Real History of 'RENT,' from Plagiarism to Its Straight Creator | Out.com". www.out.com. Retrieved 2026-03-15.
  11. ^ Schulman, Sarah (1998). Stagestruck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America. Duke University Press. pp. 9–10. ISBN 978-0-8223-2264-1.
  12. ^ Swedberg, Sarah (2019-07-30). "The Queer Truth: Sarah Schulman's People in Trouble". Nursing Clio. Retrieved 2026-03-15.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.