Body Counts: A Memoir of Activism, Sex, and Survival - Inspiring LGBTQ+ Story for Book Clubs & Social Justice Readers

Sean Strub's BODY COUNTS should be required reading for anyone interested in the AIDS epidemic in this country. It is one of those books that is difficult to put down. As I read it, I was reminded how much Mr. Strub's story mirrors that of all of us who were alive and young in large cities in that awful time in the 1980`s and 90`s until the drug cocktail became available in 1996 when we literally saw our friends come back from deathbeds in a matter of weeks. We first read of gay men dying of a strange affliction in the NEW YORK NATIVE in 1981, then it was called gay cancer, then something called GRID and finally AIDS. And Larry Kramer's front page article in the NEW YORK NATIVE, "1,112 and Counting," in 1983 sent shock waves into the gay community across this country. We found out just how bad homophobia and fear really were when funeral homes refused to accept our dead. We would hear in a casual conversation with friends that someone whom we had not seen in a few months had died. Families had gay sons whose obits in their home town newspaper listed the cause of death as cancer. And like the author, I remember the first person I ever knew who had AIDS. Mr. Strub's memoir brings it all back home.We would expect the man who founded the magazine POZ to write an honest-take-no-prisoners account of what happened, and he does. All the usual villains are here. Here are some of them: when Ronald Reagan spoke the word "AIDS" for the first time in 1987, way into his second term as President, twenty-one thousand Americans had already died of it. Anthony Fauci at the NIH was uncooperative in 1987 in writing guidelines recommending the inexpensive drug Bactrim to prevent PCP in PWA's even though infectious disease specialists had known as early as 1977 of its effectiveness. When the guidelines were finally issued in 1989, 30,534 people in the U. S. had died of PCP, and approximately 16,929 of the deaths had occurred between the time Fauci was first approached and the date the guidelines were issued. And Bill Clinton gets tarred and feathered too. Mr. Strub feels betrayed by him, someone whose candidacy for President he and so many others had supported, hoping for great things from him. What we got was "Don't Ask; Don't Tell," the Defense of Marriage Act that Clinton now admits was unconstitutional and his refusal to lift the ban on the use of federal money to fund needle-exchange programs to reduce HIV transmission. In Strub's words: "Like many other people with HIV, I felt betrayed by Clinton because I'd believed him during his campaign when he told my ACT UP colleague Bob Rafsky, 'I feel your pain.'" (Mr. Strub also outs Donna Shalala as a closet lesbian.) And he recounts in great delightful detail when he and six others put a gigantic condom on Senator Jesse Helms' house in Arlington, Virginia. Helms he describes as the man in public life who was the greatest enemy of people with AIDS. Finally the author begins his narrative with the protest in December, 1989 at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York when ACT UP protesters interrupt John Cardinal O'Connor's Mass because of his position of safe sex and reproductive rights. When Mr. Strub goes to the altar ostensibly to take communion, the priest sees the pink triangle and Silence=Death logo on his T-shirt under his coat. Mr. Strub begins: "'May the Lord bless the man I love, who died a year ago this week.'" (page 3) (From that moment on, I knew that Mr. Strub had my heart.)In sharp contrast are the Elizabeth Taylors and Matilde Krims of the world, the young people in ACT UP, as well as the multitudes of gay men and lesbians who cared for the sick and dying. Mr. Strub reminds us that AIDS brought gay men and lesbians together as never before. "AIDS helped us cement the concept of a chosen family of friends as the foundation upon which we built a massive and heroic effort to tend to our sick and dying." He closes this book of 400 pages that seems much shorter in a beautiful passage that rises to the level of poetry. He says that even though he has often been furious with the Catholic Church, the church he was brought up in, that he accepts its lesson that life's meaning is found in contemplation, penance and service. In his own words: "Sometimes that service is simply a matter of being present with no other action necessary. Joe Sonnabend [a physician in the thick of treating people with AIDS from the beginning of the epidemic] once let me look at a box of letters and cards he received over the years from the surviving partners and parents of patients of his who had died. . . They all thank Joe for his care and kindness, but I was struck by how many simply thanked him for `being there' for the person they loved. When I see someone very ill or hospitalized and feel helpless, not knowing what I can do to help alleviate their pain, I remember those cards and remind myself that even when all I can do is `be there,' that is enough."There is so much more than I cover in this little review: Mr. Strub's early life in Iowa, his political life in D. C., his producing of the play THE NIGHT LARRY KRAMER KISSED ME, the loves of his life, his many friends in the gay and AIDS community. This is a fantastic book.