BETWEEN CERTAIN DEATH AND A POSSIBLE FUTURE

Essays by queer writers who have never known a world without AIDS show the enormous impact of the global crisis across race, class, gender, and ethnicity.

Sycamore sought submissions from a generation “that came of age in the midst of the epidemic,” including those who grew up after the advent of effective HIV treatments. Even across large differences in culture and AIDS education, these essayists were constantly told some variation of “I was going to die because I was gay. I was abominable and I was doomed”—as Dan Cullinane writes in “Andy Bell Made Me Gay.” However, most of these personal narratives end with redemption and survival. The stories involve overcoming racism (Bryan M. Holdman: “Surviving HIV doesn’t mean I will necessarily survive Blackness”), classism, misogyny, and homophobia as well as stigma surrounding the contraction, diagnosis, and treatment of the disease. The collection exposes a wide disparity in AIDS education and prevention; more than one writer notes that HIV awareness was nonexistent inside the penitentiary system and that AIDS was an equal-opportunity killer, striking down young, old, poor, rich, White, Black, and everything in-between. More than one contributor observes that despite therapeutic cocktails and prophylactic measures, AIDS continues to kill, with no cure in sight. Like the Covid-19 crisis, the AIDS epidemic has exposed previously understudied dimensions of inequality, and HIV continues to disproportionately impact marginalized communities. The redundancy of experiences across the three dozen essays can make reading the entire book wearying, but the passions captured by this anthology offer a valuable wealth of perspectives for AIDS and sex educators and a multicultural wake-up call to all readers. As Tony Correia writes, “The lab has a way of leveling the playing field. It all comes down to blood.” Other contributors include Rigoberto González, Hugh Ryan, and Manuel Betancourt.

A satisfyingly diverse collection of most welcome voices on a topic that still deserves attention.