AIDS Literature

History

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) quickly reached North America’s consciousness and culture following its beginning manifestations there in the early 1980s. At that time, before AIDS was even recognized as a disease linked to a virus, it had a frightening and powerful impact on the identities of those suffering, and on the imaginations of everyone. Little was known about AIDS at first, but the medical and technological knowledge base continued to grow. As a result of the variety of perceptions—including moral perceptions—of the syndrome over the years, having AIDS created a complex identity distinct from that brought about by having any other fatal illness.

AIDS originally was considered, in North America, to be an illness of marginalized individuals: gay men, IV drug users, and Haitians. Early case studies suggested that AIDS is a disease that is sexually transmitted. This created a stigma attached to any individual with AIDS because of cultural discomfort with issues of sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular. Persons with AIDS were evicted from housing and were refused admission to school programs as an effect of panic and hatred rather than as an effect of medical understanding. To provide general knowledge about AIDS, and thus lessen fear, the United States Department of Health and Human Services released a brochure, sent to all households in 1988, that delineated risk factors in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission. This mass mailing and other such information campaigns broadened the scope of public knowledge. AIDS was seen as a problem of the gay community, however, and not that of the general population, until such cases as that of Ryan White, a young hemophiliac, were publicized. AIDS devastated the gay community early on, with Larry Kramer being one of the first to sound the alarm about the AIDS crisis in his essay “1,112 and Counting.” Kramer, founder of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York, wrote numerous essays to espouse sexual self-protection among gay men.

By 2017, gay and bisexual men continued to be the population most affected by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in the United States; that year, this population accounted for 66 percent of all HIV diagnoses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Much has been written about living with AIDS and its impact on the identity of afflicted individuals and on the community.

Early AIDS Literature, 1981–1988

The earliest AIDS literature is often testimonial. The earliest gay AIDS novel is Paul Reed’s Facing It (1984). This novel describes the beginning of the AIDS panic in 1981–82. Reed uses simple medical terminology and the AIDS-afflicted gay male character rapidly deteriorates, which was common in that time. Barbara Peabody’s The Screaming Room: A Mother’s Journal of Her Son’s Struggle with AIDS (1986) offers a testimonial tribute to her son. She cared for him in the final stages of his illness and her loving description testifies to her son’s fine qualities as a man and a son. Paul Monette’s Love Alone: Eighteen Elegies for Rog (1988) uses poetry to highlight Monette’s relationship with his lover, who died of AIDS complications in 1986. This poetry serves as a testament to their bond throughout the trials of maintaining a relationship over an extended period of time and during a terminal illness. Monette also produced Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir (1988), which chronicles his own struggle with AIDS while his lover dies of AIDS. This autobiographical work received critical acclaim and was widely read.

Additional works of fiction include Alice Hoffman’s best-selling novel At Risk (1988), which provided a first exposure to the specter of AIDS for many middle-class suburban readers. This novel has a child protagonist who is infected through a blood transfusion. Young adult author M. E. Kerr published Night Kites in 1986, which has the protagonist trying to come to terms with his gay older brother’s HIV-positive status. Another young adult novel is Good-Bye Tomorrow (1987) by Gloria Miklowitz. Again, the protagonist has AIDS as a result of a transfusion and Miklowitz portrays the reaction of the immediate community. These young adult novels demonstrate that much was misunderstood about AIDS, and that widespread fear and rejection of the afflicted occurred. There was often an attempt made by friends and family to maintain secrecy about AIDS, to protect the afflicted from societal censure.

Gay authors also produced novels in this era. Robert Ferro wrote Second Son in 1988, which mixes the real symptoms of AIDS with the desire for a utopian society. Armistead Maupin uses comic realism in his Tales of the City series for The San Francisco Chronicle. His novel Babycakes (1984) has a central character lose his lover to AIDS. The final volume in his series, Sure of You (1989), features AIDS much more peripherally but illustrates the devastation felt by the entire San Francisco community. Christopher Davis produced a novel in which the protagonists, both gay men, perish from AIDS. This novel, Valley of the Shadow (1988), features a New York setting. Gay authors of this era showed that people with AIDS were often rejected by their biological families and cared for by lovers and friends.

Plays were being produced Off-Broadway, and one of the most recognized of them was Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart (1985). His play demanded more governmental involvement for funding and researching AIDS. William Hoffman’s As Is (1985) is a more personal play in that the focus is on the relationship of two men, one having been diagnosed with AIDS. Hoffman’s play illustrates that AIDS can renew the love between two individuals, rather than create a chasm.

Nonfiction works of literature, such as autobiographies and personal essays, were prevalent in the gay press, in magazines such as The Advocate and Christopher Street, and in mainstream magazines and newspapers. Numerous essays and articles were written about living with AIDS, and some of these have been collected into anthologies. Michael Callen edited Surviving and Thriving with AIDS: Hints for the Newly Diagnosed (1987). This anthology has essays of gay individuals struggling with AIDS. A second anthology, Surviving and Thriving with AIDS: Collected Wisdom (1990), covers a broad spectrum of individuals living with AIDS, including a chapter on pediatric AIDS. J. W. Money wrote To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before: An AIDS Diary in 1987. This book’s self-reflective essays are lightly humorous. Ines Reider and Patricia Ruppelt edited an anthology about women and AIDS titled AIDS: The Women (1988). This text has first-person accounts by women who are HIV-positive, people with AIDS, prostitutes, health care professionals, and educators. The nature of these essays is frequently testimonial.

AIDS Literature After 1988

AIDS literature was being produced in small amounts during the first era of AIDS awareness, from 1981 to 1988. At that time, many of the texts were elegiac in tone, but by late 1988 there was a change in the tone. Some of the literature was more openly angry and critical of slow governmental response to the outbreak. Some authors broadened their perspective and, rather than tell a first-person story of their immediate experience with AIDS, made powerful suggestions about what was to be done. The literature of the first period concerns itself with the experience of the problem; the literature of the second period also concerns itself with the realization that the problem is not going to go away. AIDS became part of a continuing landscape; the first AIDS pieces with a historical perspective were written. By 1991, AIDS had been evident in North American culture for approximately a decade. AIDS literature became increasingly knowledgeable about AIDS symptoms and treatments. The focus shifted from tales of those dying to tales of those living with HIV, particularly following the introduction of an effective antiretroviral therapy in 1996. The names of those living with the virus more often became public knowledge; the stigma diminished somewhat. The cultural response to the virus became, to an extent, less one of fear and more one of compassion.

There is no stronger visual representation of the impact of AIDS upon the individual than the NAMES Project, or the AIDS quilt. These quilt blocks, each one lovingly created in the memory of an AIDS-deceased person, have been presented in many communities. Cindy Ruskin’s book, The Quilt: Stories from the NAMES Project (1988), depicts the colorful quilt blocks and the beginnings of the project.

More testimonials and personal essays were published by diverse authors as more of the population became HIV-positive and openly wrote about it. Elizabeth Glaser and Laura Palmer produced In the Absence of Angels: A Hollywood Family’s Courageous Story (1991). This is Glaser’s tale of her transfusion infection and her bravery in caring for her two infected children. Another woman author, Fran Peavey, wrote A Shallow Pool of Time (1989), which chronicles her struggle with AIDS and her grassroots political activism. The American public had heard of the trials that Ryan White had suffered as a result of attempting to continue at public school; his autobiography became a best-seller. There was public interest in learning more about the lives of people with AIDS.

In another sign of growing acknowledgment of the AIDS epidemic, television programs and screenplays were produced. The film Longtime Companion (1990) focused on the lives of gay men over the course of the epidemic. The screenplay by Craig Lucas was released in paperback form. Many plays that remain unpublished were performed.

Poets were releasing their impressions of AIDS and identity in a variety of texts. Michael Klein edited the volume Poets for Life: Seventy-Six Poets Respond to AIDS (1989). These poets capture perfectly the issue of AIDS and identity in poems such as “Turtle, Swan” by Mark Doty and “Heartbeats” by Melvin Dixon. Michael Lassell’s collection, Decade Dance, chronicles gay life in the 1980s before and after AIDS. Lassell’s work won the Lambda Literary Award for best poetry collection. The poet May Sarton captured the essence of the epidemic in her poem “AIDS.”

The fiction after 1988 strongly identified people as being as unique, quirky, and lovable or unlovable after acquiring the virus as they had been before acquisition. Many gay authors contributed novels that had a long historical tracing of the protagonist’s life, such as Christopher Coe’s Such Times (1993), Christopher Bram’s In Memory of Angel Clare (1988), and David Feinberg’s Eighty-Sixed (1989). Gay authors richly detailed the changes the AIDS crisis wrought on beloved individuals. Holly Uyemoto, in her novel Rebel Without a Clue (1989), portrays an HIV-infected character who continues to participate in unprotected sex. Other authors highlighted the characteristics of the afflicted individual rather than the characteristics of the disease, which suggests a greater understanding of the parameters of living with AIDS. AIDS even reached the romance novel in Dominique LaPierre’s Beyond Love (1991). The 1996 novel Push, by Sapphire, follows a teen victim of incest who has been diagnosed as having HIV.

In the first decades of the twenty-first century, literature in which AIDS and its impact were a major theme were not as prominent, and some commentators attributed this to the fact that several years had passed in which an HIV diagnosis had become more manageable and living with HIV was perceived increasingly as a chronic condition. Still, some authors aimed to keep the significance of the syndrome and its history alive. Carol Rifka Brunt's 2012 novel Tell the Wolves I'm Home is set during the first decade of the AIDS crisis, focusing on a shy, lonely young girl who becomes close to her uncle's lover after her uncle has succumbed to complications associated with AIDS. The 2016 novel Christodora, by Tim Murphy, explores the legacy of AIDS by telling, in part, the story of a man living in the twenty-first century who had played an important role in AIDS activism in its early years.

Bibliography

Aggleton, Peter, and Hilary Homans, editors. Social Aspects of AIDS. The Falmer Press, 1988. Essays on the presence of AIDS internationally and on the language of AIDS.

McKay, Richard. Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic. U of Chicago P, 2017.

Murphy, Timothy F., and Suzanne Poirier, editors. Writing AIDS: Gay Literature, Language, and Analysis. Columbia UP, 1993. Critiques AIDS fiction, the depiction of AIDS on television, and AIDS testimonials.

Nelson, Emmanuel S., editor. AIDS: The Literary Response. Twayne, 1992. Analyzes American and other works of AIDS fiction, drama, and cinema.

Pastore, Judith Laurence, editor. Confronting AIDS Through Literature: The Responsibilities of Representation. U of Illinois P, 1993. Provides samples of AIDS literature and AIDS curriculum.

Shilts, Randy. And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic. St. Martin’s Press, 1987. Unravels the development of AIDS in the United States, the governmental and medical community response, and the political activism created by the outbreak.

Sontag, Susan. AIDS and Its Metaphors. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1989. A companion text to Illness as Metaphor. Examines the presence of AIDS in American culture and the meaning attached to AIDS as an illness.