This was a fantastic chapter, with so much going on, I was on my tablet out in the living room and needed to boot up the PC to give the response this story needs...
Graduating high school in the early 70's, done with college, and a nascent budding career taking off in the 80's, the world was such a different place. It wasn't friendly or welcoming for those of us living in the shadows, then compounded by the scourge of AIDS, a disease that originally began in an overseas heterosexual community. It found its way here through the carelessness of a bisexual person, and just took off like wildfire.
Religious and political leaders could not wait to condemn, demean, and fail in their duty to understand this plague and look for a cure. It was, thankfully, a few well-known personages who started the process of a better understanding of the disease, and the beginning of acceptance of those living in the shadows.
The following quote from this chapter truly resonated with me, and while the job isn't by any means finished, thankfully, the shadows no longer exist.
So...off my soapbox....Thank you for this, from the bottom of my heart...
I looked around the table. There was no response, but I pressed on.
"But the book isn't about the tragedy," I said firmly. "It's about the response. It’s about how gay men stepped out of the shadows to care for one another when no one else would, when everything was against them. Then later—the way they fought for the right to have their loves recognized."
"What I wanted to show was how underlying it all," I said quietly, "was just love. Not heroism. Not a political statement. Just the terrifying, mundane, radical act of loving someone and being loved when the world tells you it’s less, but you know it’s more."