A useful reminder of the importance of education in slowing the spread of an epidemic.
Clark, a former AIDS educator for the United Nations who is now a creative writer and teacher, recounts pursuing her careers while living with HIV.
The author tells her story of coming to grips with being HIV-positive and then devoting herself to UN Cares, the program she helped launch in 2008. In the years she spent working for the U.N., she devoted her time to educating people about HIV and how to prevent its spread in workshops worldwide, and much of her job consisted of pushing back against denial and misinformation. Along the way, she discovered the power of sharing her story to demonstrate that people living with HIV aren’t as “different” as some people think. A revelation that some readers may find surprising is that she opposes mandatory HIV testing: “It’s our job to educate [staff members, soldiers, or civilians] so they will go for testing of their own volition,” she told a U.N. colleague. “It is not our place to force them to. We simply cannot do that. It would be unethical.” Her story includes an account of her brief marriage to a man who initially hid his mental health problems. She also demonstrates the importance of care for organizational staff, including self-care, as she needed to seek treatment for worsening effects of the virus. The book includes a postscript about when she came down with Covid-19, early in the pandemic. Clark offers an important personal account over the course of this remembrance. However, it’s not without its limitations. Although she notes her privilege as a straight White woman, she doesn’t dig deeply enough into people’s incorrect assumptions about who can and can’t become HIV-positive. Also, her discussion of her brief marriage and foster motherhood sidetracks the narrative. Finally, the book’s subtitle suggests that Covid-19 is a bigger part of the memoir than it ultimately is. Still, this book is vital to understanding how willful ignorance by those in charge assisted the spread of AIDS.
A useful reminder of the importance of education in slowing the spread of an epidemic.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 9781950668113
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Northampton House Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A solid work of investigation that, while treading well-covered ground, offers plenty of surprises.
An account of the last gasps of the Trump administration, completing a trilogy begun with Fear (2018) and Rage (2020).
One of Woodward and fellow Washington Post reporter Costa’s most memorable revelations comes right away: Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, calling his counterpart in Beijing to assure him that even after Jan. 6 and what Milley saw as an unmistakable attempt at a coup d’état, he would keep Trump from picking a war with China. This depiction has earned much attention on the talking-heads news channels, but more significant is its follow-up: Milley did so because he was concerned that Trump “might still be looking for what Milley called a ‘Reichstag moment.’ ” Milley emerges as a stalwart protector of the Constitution who constantly courted Trump’s ire and yet somehow survived without being fired. No less concerned about Trump’s erratic behavior was Paul Ryan, the former Speaker of the House, who studied the psychiatric literature for a big takeaway: “Do not humiliate Trump in public. Humiliating a narcissist risked real danger, a frantic lashing out if he felt threatened or criticized.” Losing the 2020 election was one such humiliation, and Woodward and Costa closely track the trajectory of Trump’s reaction, from depression to howling rage to the stubborn belief that the election was rigged. There are a few other modest revelations in the book, including the fact that Trump loyalist William Barr warned him that the electorate didn’t like him. “They just think you’re a fucking asshole,” Barr told his boss. That was true enough, and the civil war that the authors recount among various offices in the White House and government reveals that Trump’s people were only ever tentatively his. All the same, the authors note, having drawn on scores of “deep background” interviews, Trump still has his base, still intends vengeance by way of a comeback, and still constitutes the peril of their title.
A solid work of investigation that, while treading well-covered ground, offers plenty of surprises.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-982182-91-5
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2021
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
SEEN & HEARD
When Kaysen was 18, in 1967, she was admitted to McLean Psychiatric Hospital outside Boston, where she would spend the next 18 months. Now, 25 years and two novels (Far Afield, 1990; Asa, As I Knew Him, 1987) later, she has come to terms with the experience- -as detailed in this searing account. First there was the suicide attempt, a halfhearted one because Kaysen made a phone call before popping the 50 aspirin, leaving enough time to pump out her stomach. The next year it was McLean, which she entered after one session with a bullying doctor, a total stranger. Still, she signed herself in: ``Reality was getting too dense...all my integrity seemed to lie in saying No.'' In the series of snapshots that follows, Kaysen writes as lucidly about the dark jumble inside her head as she does about the hospital routines, the staff, the patients. Her stay didn't coincide with those of various celebrities (Ray Charles, Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell), but we are not likely to forget Susan, ``thin and yellow,'' who wrapped everything in sight in toilet paper, or Daisy, whose passions were laxatives and chicken. The staff is equally memorable: ``Our keepers. As for finders—well, we had to be our own finders.'' There was no way the therapists—those dispensers of dope (Thorazine, Stelazine, Mellaril, Librium, Valium)—might improve the patients' conditions: Recovery was in the lap of the gods (``I got better and Daisy didn't and I can't explain why''). When, all these years later, Kaysen reads her diagnosis (``Borderline Personality''), it means nothing when set alongside her descriptions of the ``parallel universe'' of the insane. It's an easy universe to enter, she assures us. We believe her. Every word counts in this brave, funny, moving reconstruction. For Kaysen, writing well has been the best revenge.
Pub Date: June 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-679-42366-4
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
