A prologue describing a tragic loss for a contemporary teen during the early days of COVID offers an arresting entry into a memoir that pulls AIDS out of history and into the present. Lynn Curlee begins by briefly recounting his childhood and young adulthood. After college, in the early 1970s, he moved to New York City. It was a thrilling time to be a young gay man there and embarking on a career as an artist. He made friends, found community, fell in love, and saw professional success. He goes on to document the growing alarm within the gay community around the mysterious disease that we now know as HIV/AIDS, followed by loss after loss of people he knew and those in his wider community: friends, friends of friends, former lovers, and others. Through Curlee’s eyes the sense of unease, fear, and grief comes through vividly, as does the anger within the larger gay and LGBTQ community at public attitudes and ignorance, and government inaction. His account provides a compelling personal look at the impact of AIDS at a time when AIDS may feel like ancient history for many contemporary teens. (Age 14 and older)