MY UNEXPECTED LIFE
An International Memoir of Two Pandemics, HIV and COVID-19
by Martina Clark
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.