A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham

In the foreword of Jennifer Weiner's new book, she cites two novels that influenced her to write Mrs. Everything. A Home at the End of the World was one of these books, and I'm a bit ashamed to admit, I grabbed a copy and devoured it before continuing on with Mrs. Everything. 

The novel follows Bobby and Jonathan through early childhood through their adult lives as they meet and forge a complicated, outside-the-box relationship with each other and a woman, Clare. We get to glimpse the world through their eyes, as well as Jonathan's mother, Alice: suburban, gray-landscaped Cleveland to the frenetic world of NYC to a quiet life in Woodstock, tinged by the cultural and societal leanings of each decade. All four characters are multifaceted, rough-edged, unpredictable people who make decisions and then are haunted by the choices made. 

This is also a novel about AIDS when it was a full-blown epidemic, and the unease of that time period determines what happens to these characters in the final chapters. It's a lovely rumination of life, death, and what constitutes a life well worth living.