LGBT Book & Video Blog

Chronicle of a Plague, Revisited: AIDS and Its Aftermath

Chronicle of a Plague, Revisited: AIDS and Its Aftermath
by Andrew Holleran

Literature, whether fiction or non-fiction, connects us to our history in a way that no textbook or Powerpoint presentation can. A newly released essay collection “Chronicle of a Plague, Revisited: AIDS and Its Aftermath,” by renowned gay author Andrew Holleran, brings us viscerally back to the sights, sounds and smells of New York in the 1980s during the earliest years of the epidemic.

First published in 1988 and originally titled “Ground Zero,” this classic of AIDS literature has been out of print for a decade. Containing 10 pieces that weren’t in the previous edition and a new introduction, this volume describes and preserves a critical period of gay history for current and future generations.

Twenty years ago, long before Sept. 11, he chose the title “Ground Zero,” “because it felt as if AIDS had exploded in New York like a bomb among gay men and left a crater in our lives,” Holleran writes, “… many people died; others took care of them; still others organized. Everybody was afraid.”

More of this review of A powerful ‘Chronicle’
Washington Blade, DC -



gay books lesbian books gay men

posted by Tom Jackson @ Saturday, June 21, 2008