David’s Reviews > Between Certain Death and a Possible Future: Queer Writing on Growing up with the AIDS Crisis > Status Update

Lots of great personal stories here! 36 separate essays.

I saw an interview on YouTube about Paul Reuben's life (PeeWee Herman). They spoke about how gay generations can be grouped in 5 or less year groupings (vs. our typical 15 year blocks of Gen Z, Alpha, etc.) You really have to be sensitive to the 'generation' of each queer person and what was VERY specifically happening in the world; from Stonewall to Today. These essays here nicely bounce around in 80's/90's/00's.

We carried condoms scrupulously, but we rarely needed them because f*cking was off-limits. (1984)

The 80's and into the 90's saw AIDS misinformation, secrecy, denial, shame, fear of testing. Clearly evident in these essays.

36 Stories, focus on the years between HIV=Death & U=U:
#1 "What Survival Means": 1991; What steps would I take to continue surviving if I test positive? 4*
#2 "Surviving My Cousin": mid80's/early90's. Black cousins come out in their own environments (family/school); 5*