David B. Feinberg (1956–1994)

I have had this book for ages, since college, probably, though I don't remember at all how I acquired it. I do know it has sat on my shelves for many a year. I'm sure I felt there was no urgency to read another AIDS book after I've read Paul Monette and And the Band Played On. And once I'd gotten to this point, well, why now? Now that the crisis has passed its hottest point of urgency. Not that an unreasonable number of people aren't still being infected, not that prevention still remains shrouded in secrecy and superstition in much of the world, by those who don't want anyone talking about "dirty" things like sex or drugs, and not like most of the world isn't content to wring their hands briefly and then look away, especially when it's mostly people of color doing the dying. But now, now that we're gaining a better understanding of how the virus works. Now that AIDS fundraising and advocacy groups are generally afforded the same level of respectability as cancer and heart disease organizations. Now that a diagnosis no longer has to mean that you die of AIDS. Not if you can afford the meds.

Maybe it is this exact sense of blandness that has accumulated around the AIDS crisis that made this book, once I'd picked it up on a random impulse, so gripping and hard to put down. To be reminded that it was life and death once, to everyone who had it, is to be reminded that it is still so, for so many, now. Then it was Reagan, a slow drug approval process, and the public's general apathy in the face of what was seen as a gay man's disease. (I'm reminded suddenly of Eddie Izzard's line on foreign dictators -- "We've been trying to kill you for ages! So kill your own people, right on there.") Now it's international patent law, squeamish conservative restrictions placed on international aid, and the public's general apathy in the face of what is seen as an African disease.

But this changing face of AIDS is not what this book is about. Queer and Loathing is a collection of extremely personal essays by one gay man grappling with his HIV status in New York City in the late eighties, early nineties. For the most part the essays were written as stand-alone pieces, freelance articles for magazines and speeches for protests and demonstrations. But arranged chronologically, they form a solid narrative, a compelling portrait of the author, and a glimpse into the activist community during the heyday of ACT-UP demonstrations.

The stories of the demonstrations offer an interesting comparison between how cops and other law enforcement reacted to the persistent, recurring demonstrations of AIDS activists then, and Occupy protesters now. Even when the police overreacted then (and they most certainly did, on occasion), there were no mentions of tear gas or pepper spray. No telling people it was okay to cross a certain line, then cordoning off and arresting all who did. But I suppose that's another conversation for another time.… (mehr)

A collection of essays written in the early 90s by Feinberg, a young gay man with AIDS. A math geek and computer programmer, Feinberg spends his free time going to friends' funerals, trying to prevent and treat his snow-balling health problems, and doing huge amounts of activism. He's very funny, but he's also clearly very angry, and rightfully so. Not a single anecdote passes without needing footnotes--nearly every person he mentions is dead by the time each essay was published.

Feinberg died in 1995, the same month this book was published. But knowing this doesn't imbue the work with any extra meaning or pathos. It's an excellent book regardless of its writer's fate; his humor may be more biting than witty, but it's always on-point. Knowing that his convoluted health regimen and years spent campaigning for more research, more treatment options, and better standards of care for HIV people did not, in the end, save him doesn't destroy the meaning of all that effort. Feinberg was a fire brand and a nerd, and his work serves as both a fascinating historical document and a call to action.… (mehr)