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Between Certain Death and a Possible Future: Queer Writing on Growing up with the AIDS Crisis
Top of the pile
75
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
98/100Critics
53/100Scholars
Author:
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
Publisher:
Arsenal Pulp Press
Date:
October 5, 2021
Every queer person lives with the trauma of AIDS, and this plays out intergenerationally. Usually we hear about two generations--the first, coming of age in the era of gay liberation, and then watching entire circles of friends die of a mysterious illness as the government did nothing to intervene. And now we hear about younger people growing up with effective treatment and prevention available, unable to comprehend the magnitude of the loss. But there is another generation between these two, one that came of age in the midst of the epidemic with the belief that desire intrinsically led to death, and internalized this trauma as part of becoming queer. Between Certain Death and a Possible Future: Queer Writing on Growing up with the AIDS Crisis offers crucial stories from this missing generation in AIDS literature and cultural politics.
What The Reviewers Say
Between Certain Death and a Possible Future presents more than thirty-five different voices and perspectives from around the world, with a wide range of identities and experiences that sometimes confirm the mainstream tale of how queer generations have been shaped by their relationship to HIV and AIDS, and just as often show that the most common stories are the least common realities.
A satisfyingly diverse collection of most welcome voices on a topic that still deserves attention.
Queer people who came of age in the wake of the AIDS epidemic reflect on their experiences in this moving but inconsistent essay collection.
