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Lived To Tell: A Celebration of Friends Lost to AIDS
Madonna sang Lived To Tell as she soared over the faces of the eight friends in this book during her Celebration Tour honoring 'Those Bright Lights Lost to AIDS.' The author survived the pandemic and two strokes to tell this story.
Return to the 1980s in this rollicking true story! Revel in the last care-free decade before GPAs and success became all that mattered. Discover Gay life between Stonewall, before AIDS decimated a generation. Step onto the sun-kissed sands of Laguna Beach. Fall in with the In-crowd. Hang out with these eight beautiful boys as they terrorize West Street Beach and West Hollywood. This stunning Coming-of-Age memoir reads like a non-fiction novel. Join these half-naked Golden Boys as they swim up to yachts and sample buffets of Caviar and cocaine. Wild and reckless they lived like there was no tomorrow. Sadly, there was. As the shadow of a plague gathered over life in the fast lane , these six friends squeeze into a Camaro Convertible and make a cross-country run for their life. They are looking for love in all the wrong places. Laugh with them as they explore gay bars and bathhouses. Enjoy their Endless Summer before it comes to an end. You will never forget these friends. Madonna featured their faces on her recent Celebration Tour as she honored the Bright Lights Lost to AIDS. Now, hear their voices.
By turns wry, elegant, and insightful, Churchill conjures a dazzling era with clever prose and no small amount of elan. His firsthand account brings fun and poignance to an adventurous “lost generation” that deserves a radiant new vitality. — Jonathan Kieran, author of The Wednesday Box
With 75 vintage B/W snapshots
Return to the 1980s in this rollicking true story! Revel in the last care-free decade before GPAs and success became all that mattered. Discover Gay life between Stonewall, before AIDS decimated a generation. Step onto the sun-kissed sands of Laguna Beach. Fall in with the In-crowd. Hang out with these eight beautiful boys as they terrorize West Street Beach and West Hollywood. This stunning Coming-of-Age memoir reads like a non-fiction novel. Join these half-naked Golden Boys as they swim up to yachts and sample buffets of Caviar and cocaine. Wild and reckless they lived like there was no tomorrow. Sadly, there was. As the shadow of a plague gathered over life in the fast lane , these six friends squeeze into a Camaro Convertible and make a cross-country run for their life. They are looking for love in all the wrong places. Laugh with them as they explore gay bars and bathhouses. Enjoy their Endless Summer before it comes to an end. You will never forget these friends. Madonna featured their faces on her recent Celebration Tour as she honored the Bright Lights Lost to AIDS. Now, hear their voices.
By turns wry, elegant, and insightful, Churchill conjures a dazzling era with clever prose and no small amount of elan. His firsthand account brings fun and poignance to an adventurous “lost generation” that deserves a radiant new vitality. — Jonathan Kieran, author of The Wednesday Box
With 75 vintage B/W snapshots
285 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 15, 2025
24 people are currently reading
45 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 3, 2025
I wanted to enjoy this book. The author and I are of similar ages and witnessed our friends and loved ones die horrific deaths while our then-president ignored our community. I’m sure he and I have more in common than being gay and watching our friends die. The book, however, had little substance from which to judge this. The writing was poorly organized and littered with grammatical-, syntax-, and spelling errors. He would have done well to have an editor.
Despite these grand distractions, underneath it all was a story of growing up on the heels of a sexual revolution. Following the Stonewall Riots, it was a time when the gay community was allowed, ever so slightly, to come out of hiding. The combination of these two forces created a perfect storm for the HIV/AIDS epidemic. He missed the opportunity to go deeper than the superficial stories of his friends to explore what our community was feeling and experiencing when we realized what was happening. He did touch upon the fear, briefly. But, I suspect there was a lot more he could explore about this.
I pushed myself to finish the story. Glad I did. But, I didn’t learn much about anyone.
Despite these grand distractions, underneath it all was a story of growing up on the heels of a sexual revolution. Following the Stonewall Riots, it was a time when the gay community was allowed, ever so slightly, to come out of hiding. The combination of these two forces created a perfect storm for the HIV/AIDS epidemic. He missed the opportunity to go deeper than the superficial stories of his friends to explore what our community was feeling and experiencing when we realized what was happening. He did touch upon the fear, briefly. But, I suspect there was a lot more he could explore about this.
I pushed myself to finish the story. Glad I did. But, I didn’t learn much about anyone.
August 29, 2025
A Bittersweet Sex Memoir
David Churchill’s memoir focuses mainly on life as a beautiful young man in the 80’s and early 90’s. Tall and blonde, with a body molded by volleyball games on the sand rather than the gym, he could have most anyone he wanted. He floated through most of these years with a gaggle of other beautiful guys, from California to Florida and back. It’s a good read as we meet the members of his gaggle, laughing, crying and (perhaps secretly) regretting we didn’t live that life — all the while recognizing that if we had we likely would not have “lived to tell” about it. Churchill seems to have survived because he was a somewhat picky top and was looking for love more than for hookups. A critical reader will find some technical flaws that could have been fixed by a good editor, but they don’t interfere with the story.
David Churchill’s memoir focuses mainly on life as a beautiful young man in the 80’s and early 90’s. Tall and blonde, with a body molded by volleyball games on the sand rather than the gym, he could have most anyone he wanted. He floated through most of these years with a gaggle of other beautiful guys, from California to Florida and back. It’s a good read as we meet the members of his gaggle, laughing, crying and (perhaps secretly) regretting we didn’t live that life — all the while recognizing that if we had we likely would not have “lived to tell” about it. Churchill seems to have survived because he was a somewhat picky top and was looking for love more than for hookups. A critical reader will find some technical flaws that could have been fixed by a good editor, but they don’t interfere with the story.
May 16, 2025
An ode to friends and youth during a time when both were lost too soon
First came across the author’s posts about his friends on the AIDS Memorial Instagram page, and I’m so glad he turned them into book. Loved every minute of it. An ode to friends and youth during a time when both were lost too soon. Highly recommend. Can’t wait for the next book.
First came across the author’s posts about his friends on the AIDS Memorial Instagram page, and I’m so glad he turned them into book. Loved every minute of it. An ode to friends and youth during a time when both were lost too soon. Highly recommend. Can’t wait for the next book.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews