I literally rested my elbows on my desk and put my head in my hands: what am I supposed to write about this?
Jonas Gardell's trilogy follows the lives of gay men in the early 1980s Sweden, and then onto modern day--for those few who survive the AIDS epidemic--and its titles should prepare you mentally for what's about to unfold: Part 1: Love. Part 2: Sickness. Part 3: Death. Yet, even knowing what was coming in part three, that mental preparation didn't make it any easier.
Below is going to be spoilers.
Besides, the reader is carrying the wounds from the previous parts: Benjamin, a goody-two-shoes Jehova's Witness is completely shunned by his family, and somehow that break just feels worse over time. When you know that he's trying to tell them something very important about his life, and they just destroy his letters.
His boyfriend's, Rasmus's, parents knit him sweaters and call him their son, up until Rasmus dies. I thought my heart already broke multiple times earlier in the novel, when Rasmus's mom says some really terrible things to Rasmus when she finds out he's ill, but the way the otherwise tolerant, loving parents' switch is flipped mere minutes after Rasmus dies is devastating: not only do they leave Benjamin utterly alone with his debilitating grief--the boy who thought he had essentially found a second set of parents to replace those who don't want anything to do with him--they also take over Rasmus's funeral arrangements and prevent Benjamin and all of their friends from attending. They also rob Benjamin of his last moments with Rasmus; although the parents have somewhat gotten along with Rasmus since his declaration to follow his heart, they were never again close. But Rasmus's mother convinces Benjamin to give the father time alone with his son; I guess to atone for his own sins of nearly disowning the child he loved so much. The parents' behavior is somehow understandable, but also terribly, terribly selfish.
It's a lot. Gardell doesn't shy away from describing the utter coldness and inhumanity of politicians and hospital staff toward men with HIV, and he vividly describes the pain and suffering of the men, in throes of the illness and the mental and emotional load society's shunning is taking on them. Much of this is accompanied by quotes from actual newspaper articles, press conferences, or talk shows, that are flabbergastingly ignorant and cruel. But that was the 1980s-90s.
It is not a happy book, nor does it have a happy ending; but how could it have? There's something hopeful there at the end, when Benjamin has lived long enough to see same-sex marriage get legalized, and pride parades become fun for the whole family. But he takes it day by day, because nearly all of his friends paid a terrible price for ignorance and prejudice.