Love Undetectable: Notes on Friendship, Sex, and Survival

by Andrew Sullivan

"I intend to be among the first generation that survives this disease." That was former New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan's first public statement about his HIV diagnosis. Speaking to heterosexual and homosexual audiences alike, this book is about the first steps in that journey of survival.

If Sullivan's acclaimed first book, Virtually Normal , was about politics, this long-awaited sequel is about life. In a memoir in the form of three essays, Sullivan asks hard questions about his own life and others'. Can the practice of friendship ever compensate for a life without love? Is sex at war or at peace with spirituality? Can faith endure the randomness of death? Is homosexuality genetic or environmental?

Love Undetectable, then, refers to many to a virus that, for many, has become "undetectable" in the bloodstream thanks to new drugs, and to the failed search for love and intimacy that helped spread it; to the love of God, which in times of plague seems particularly hard to find and understand; to a sexual orientation long pathologized and denied any status as an equal form of human love; and to the love between friends, a love ignored when it isn't demeaned, and obscured by the more useful imperatives of family and society.

In a work destined to be as controversial as his first book, Sullivan takes on religious authorities and gay activists; talks candidly about his own promiscuity and search for love; revisits Freud in the origins of homosexuality; and makes one of the more memorable modern cases for elevating the virtue of friendship over the satisfactions of love. Scholarly, impassioned, wide-ranging, and embattled, Love Undetectable is a book that is ultimately not about homosexuality or plague, but about humanity and mortality.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, LGBT, Essays, Gay, Queer, Relationships

255 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Andrew Michael Sullivan is a British blogger, author, and political commentator. He is a speaker at universities, colleges, and civic organizations in the United States, and a guest on national news and political commentary television shows in the United States and Europe. Born and raised in England, he has lived in the United States since 1984 and currently resides in Washington, D.C. and Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Sullivan is sometimes considered a pioneer in political weblog journalism, since he was one of the first prominent political journalists in the United States to start his own personal blog. Sullivan wrote his blog for a year at Time Magazine, shifting on 1 February 2007 to The Atlantic, where it received approximately 40 million page views in the first year. He is the former editor of The New Republic.

Reviews

[Simone · Rating 4 out of 5]

I mainly wanted to read this because of a lovely piece on Brain Pickings about one of these essays. The essay on why friendship is better than romantic love is one for the ages. I really enjoyed the two other essays in the book as well. I wish I had more eloquent thoughts on this book, but these will have to do.

[Serene Lim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is by far the most successful piece of writing I have encountered in tackling the complexities of humanity. I cannot overstate the profundity of the insights I have gleaned from Sullivan's simplistic prose. Simply put, this book is important as it proffers lessons in empathy, a value that our society is very much impoverished of. It is a shame that this is not a well-known title; I stumbled upon the book serendipitously whilst trawling the Internet for free pdfs (openlibrary.org is your best friend for that). I have been on goodreads for years and this is the first review I have bothered to write - I hope that stands testament to how strongly I urge you to read it!

[Henry 磊磊 · Rating 3 out of 5]

the strongest essay is the first where he talks about his own experience with HIV. the second on the psychology of homosexuality was boring and I skipped the second half. the third on friendship felt pretty repetitive though there were some good parts when he starts to talk about his own friendship with Pat.

[Morgan Walker Annable · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 💫 a beautiful memoir that included personal experience and story, religious commentary and theology, science and studies, and more. Its a beautiful witness to the gay experience, especially the experience of those who live with HIV or love someone living with HIV.

[Alex Dimaio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful. Wish it were more memoir though

[Vito Alberto · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not completely sold on AS's interpretation of the Aquinas' concept of caritas nor on his general argument about friendship, but I found this to be a great book nonetheless.

[Mitch Flitcroft · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harrowing first-hand account of the AIDS epidemic. It explores love, grief, homosexuality, normality, but above all else, friendship.

[Michael Meeuwis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh, Andrew Sullivan, you special Catholic gay person, you. I find this book ungainly in the way that I find the blog ungainly, although the writing here is much better: he gets passionate about things, and occasionally the passion throws him in odd directions. The description of life in the AIDS epidemic in the pre-cocktail years is very fine, and very informative, as is the description of the day-to-day effects of new medications on AIDS treatment. His essay on friendship is maybe even better, in parts--I find myself thinking of it from time to time, months after reading the book. It will give you a new vocabulary for talking about friendship.
I do find his descriptions of the specialness of his friends to be a little bit much--it's obvious that he moved in elite circles, indeed, and I think that this clouds his judgment about some of the book's issues. And I do still find that the book's descriptions of Catholicism are problematic, although I worry that this is my own resistance to Sullivan's reconciliation of Catholicism and homosexuality more than perhaps the book's faults.
Finally, the Freud business. I've had disagreements with friends that I've talked to about this, but I do find his Freudian narrative of homosexuality-as-unusual-development to be problematic. I think this dates the book, even though it's not more than a decade old: Sullivan's homosexuals are different and, well, special, in a way that I'm not sure I agree with. This might date me to this particular moment, but I don't know that homosexuality is as not-normal as Sullivan describes it. He's very invested in a wider application of the kind of homosexuality that he knew: initially closeted, then closeted in elite spaces, then out from a very high vantage point. I don't think this works for a model of homosexuality in general--I mean, I hope it doesn't, since it brings us closer to a sort of Alan Blooming of homosexuality than the years between Bloom and Sullivan might seem to suggest. Since the Freud essay is the entire middle of the book, this casts problems over the volume as a whole. I feel that, in years to come, this might be the insta-skip section of this book--don't look for the essay in "The Portable Andrew Sullivan," coming 2024!
So: thought-provoking, but frequently (if suggestively, persuasively, maybe convincingly?) wrong.

[Mohammed · Rating 4 out of 5]

A powerful trio of essays on the subjects of love, sex, solidarity, and friendship, and an insightful look into the battle of HIV and AIDS in the United States as well as the uprising of gays and their communities. Sullivan delves deep into philosophy as he tries to unravel the complex threads set by Freud on one spectrum and the reparative therapists on the other to determine what is homosexuality, how it was forced to appear on the surface, and how it's influenced by our homes, parents, and friendships.

The last essay on the topic of friendship was an incredibly powerful one and a recommended read by itself. Perhaps the only point that totally lost me is when Sullivan shifted the topic momentarily to faith and Christianity near the end. Ignoring that, Sullivan goes through universally acknowledged feelings that are deeply relatable; effective as they are affective.

[Jason Logue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sullivan's collection of part-memoirs and part-essays on homosexuality, surviving the AIDs epidemic, and friendship is well-written and thought provoking. Sullivan and I don't see eye to eye, but he is such an excellent writer, such an effective rhetorician, that I couldn't help but be compelled by his arguments and ideas. His final essay on friendship is probably my favorite thing I've ever read on friendship, though. It's a thorough exploration of the concept of friendship through the pain and loss he suffered after losing his good friend Patrick to AIDs. As someone who lost my best friend a few years ago, this resonated with me on many levels. Sullivan attempts to revive a view of friendship that is seemingly lost in our sex or romance obsessed world.

[Jean · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Undetectable of the title is word play referring to very low levels of HIV antibodies in an AIDs patient; and to obscured emotional attachment. Andrew Sullivan, an erudite gay man who became HIV positive, knows of what he writes. If he weren’t so erudite, so parenthetical, so pedantic – this would be a better book. On the good side, there are a lot of painstakingly constructed arguments for why gay people are “normal” that would provide a lot of ammunition should you ever find yourself in a debate with a homophobe.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I do not alwasy agree with his politics, this book was instrumental in helping me cope with a very personal event in January 2000. Without his words and understanding, I do not know how I would have managed that event.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I alternate between a sense of enrapturement and annoyance with Sullivan. There are some very interesting points in this book, and some that, even though I know that they are coming, I still find disappointing.

[Matthew Harmon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eye opening and insightful on a level I never expected. Not always in agreement with Sullivan's politics but he was spot-on with the references and brilliant observations made in this book. I'm a fan for life after reading this.

[Mark]

Always loved this book. Especially the Essay 'If love were all'- Its worth it to re-read