ALL THE YOUNG MEN

A celebrated activist tells the story of how she became involved in easing the passing of gay men dying of AIDS.

Arkansas native Burks’ first encounter with a terminally ill AIDS patient took place in 1986 when she was visiting a friend in the hospital. She noticed a door covered in a “blood-red tarp” and nurses drawing straws to see who would go inside. Burks ventured into the room and found herself drawn into the tragic last hours of a young AIDS patient named Jimmy, who had been abandoned by everyone, including his mother, who told the author on the phone that Jimmy had “died when he went gay.” Soon, other nearby hospitals began calling Burks to help them deal with similar young men who had come in "alone, emaciated, or left at the ER.” She quickly learned how even funeral homes balked at handling these patients' remains, and she privately buried the ashes of the men she cared for in a family plot. “By 1988,” she writes, “I was looking after more people than I could say grace over.” Burks cemented her alliance with the gay community by becoming a regular at a gay bar called Our House. Meanwhile, her town and church treated her like a "pariah,” and the Ku Klux Klan harassed her with hate calls and cross burnings. The author’s courageous activism brought her to the attention of then-governor Bill Clinton, who made her his "ear to the ground on AIDS.” Yet by 1995, the advent of effective treatment rendered her caregiving activities "functionally obsolete.” Though too much backstory and detail sometimes slow the narrative pace, Burks’ vivid memories of “my guys” and the trials she endured fighting against prejudice offer a portrait of courageous compassion that is both rare and inspiring.

An overlong but deeply moving, meaningful book.