I just re-read this book for the first time since the early 90s. 600 pages well spent. This book is so staggeringly researched and emotionally hard-hiI just re-read this book for the first time since the early 90s. 600 pages well spent. This book is so staggeringly researched and emotionally hard-hitting that in spite of its length, it reads like a thriller (but not annoyingly so) and I read it really fast.
Having lived in the Washington, DC area during the 80s and 90s, I remember the political atmosphere of the times as well as the personal toll that AIDS took upon my community and many friends. Shiltz has successfully captured the shifting attitudes of the gay male community, scientists, bureaucrats, and the general public during a time when the cause and transmission routes of AIDS were still a mystery and people were shocked and scared.
The fact that Shiltz eventually also died of AIDS in 1994 made the reading of this story even more poignant, since one of the major themes was that the silence and procrastination of government officials in formulating a policy and funding for AIDS research contributed to the astronomical infection rate of a disease that was infecting hosts before anyone even knew the virus that caused it existed.
As a person who lived through the unfolding of these events, I particularly found this topic compelling. However, I would hope that younger people would find this history worth reading as well, since they are the position, in much the way that someone my age might have taken polio or the flu for granted, of not having lived through those diseases' deadly years when there was no vaccine and no cure....more
Loading...
