When Peter met Paul

Peter Hujar is much better known today than his fellow artist and former lover Paul Thek, thanks in no small part to the acclaimed 2025 film, "Peter Hujar's Day."

But a new joint biography by Andrew Durbin, The Wonderful World that Almost Was: A Life of Peter Hujar and Paul Thek, sets out to do equal justice to both men. Here are an excerpt from Vulture and a book review in The New Republic.

By the way, if Hujar's name sounds vaguely familiar but you can't quite place him: One of his most famous photographs, "Orgasmic Man," graces the cover of Hanya Yanagihara's novel, A Little Life, which we read back in 2018.