Review: Rabih Alameddine, The Angel of History

Rabih Alameddine’s new novel explores how those who lived through the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 90s continue to bear the scars and trauma of loss and abandonment.

by Saleem Haddad

“Misery is what you get for not dying—misery but some good stuff too.”

This line appears in a diary entry written by Jacob, the protagonist in Rabih Alameddine’s new novel, The Angel of History. It may strike the reader as misanthropic, but the final part of the line, “some good stuff too” suggests that Jacob’s reflections are more than j…