End Notes/ How to Survive a Plague

How to Survive a Plague: The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed AIDS by David France.

I did, in the end, read 52 books during 2016. My only regret is that I failed to capture my thoughts on each one as I finished it. I intend to fix that as I read through another 52 books in 2017. I can’t promise they’ll be stellar reviews, but hopefully they’ll improve as I practice more.

I thought I’d start with the reflections on book 51 of last year: How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS by David France. I bought it after Andrew Sullivan’s review in the Times made me cry:

These young men both witnessed their friends and lovers dying excruciating deaths, knew that they were next and yet carried on. Some of this was a gut-level human desire to live; some was a means to compensate for the grief that would otherwise overwhelm them; but a lot was simple, indelible courage. This courage didn’t just end a plague; it revolutionized medicine and, in turn, became the indispensable moral force that led, as the plague abated, to the greatest civil rights revolution of our time. This is the first and best history of this courage, and a reminder that if gay life and culture flourish for a thousand years, people will still say, “This was their finest hour.”

The book itself made me cry a half dozen times as well, for example when reading about the unveiling of the Denver Principles in 1983 or about the death of France’s lover Doug Gould in 1992. It was, perhaps, not the best choice of book for Christmas break. Its unrelenting exploration of the first 15 years of the AIDS crisis cast a long shadow over my mood, and I struggled to imagine myself into the anxiety, uncertainty, and mourning that enveloped the gay community during my first years of life.

There were things about the book that I found frustrating: France’s journalistic prose is sprightly for the first few chapters, but becomes exhausting after several hundred pages; I found myself dreaming in its crisp, direct, but often overly descriptive style after my second day of reading. The scope of the material is, of course, formidable, and could have used some judicious editing. Certain topics — like the suspicions around the link between poppers and the plague in early days, or the controversies within the gay community about whether to close bathhouses — seem to fall out of the narrative without a trace. So to do some of the people France follows, for a time at least. Interweaving the personal stories of a few dozen people over the course of 15 years is a complex task, but it sometimes seemed rather haphazard and difficult to navigate. Finally, I felt the epilogue packed less emotional (or structural) punch than did the prologue.

Even so, this is a book worth reading, whether you’re a gay man or a child of the 80s. The intersection of love, death, and bureaucratic incompetence is truly heartbreaking, and it is a stark reminder of how far [north Atlantic] society has come over my lifetime. I, for one, found myself, profoundly grateful to the women and men who stood up and fought against hate and entrenched systematic prejudice, so that I was able to come of age in a better world than that in which they lived and loved (and often died).

I remember my first trip to Provincetown, in 2004. The house we rented had dozens of photos on the walls of smiling groups (do we call them squads now?) from decades past. I wondered how many of them were still alive. And that question made me feel palpably disconnected from my community and our history. This book, more than anything I’ve read or watched, restored in me a sense of connection and of appreciation.

It also reconfirmed my appreciation for how my parents handled our first conversation about my being gay in 1995. As a scared, 14-year-old queer I was confronted and comforted and supported and loved unconditionally. They didn’t express (empirically reasonable) fears for my health or my future. They said they were there for me, no matter what. I didn’t appreciate their bravery then, but I do now. As I wait to board a flight back to London after a wonderful 3 weeks with them, I feel I couldn’t be luckier.