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All the Young Men: A Memoir of Love, AIDS, and Chosen Family in the American South
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About This Book
All The Young Men , a gripping and triumphant tale of human compassion, is the true story of Ruth Coker Burks, a young single mother in Hot Springs, Arkansas, who finds herself driven to the forefront of the AIDS crisis, and becoming a pivotal activist in America's fight against AIDS. In 1986, 26-year old Ruth visits a friend at the hospital when she notices that the door to one of the hospital rooms is painted red. She witnesses nurses drawing straws to see who would tend to the patient inside, all of them reluctant to enter the room. Out of impulse, Ruth herself enters the quarantined space and immediately begins to care for the young man who cries for his mother in the last moments of his life. Before she can even process what she's done, word spreads in the community that Ruth is the only person willing to help these young men afflicted by AIDS, and is called upon to nurse them. As she forges deep friendships with the men she helps, she works tirelessly to find them housing and jobs, even searching for funeral homes willing to take their bodies – often in the middle of the night. She cooks meals for tens of people out of discarded food found in the dumpsters behind supermarkets, stores rare medications for her most urgent patients, teaches sex-ed to drag queens after hours at secret bars, and becomes a beacon of hope to an otherwise spurned group of ailing gay men on the fringes of a deeply conservative state. Throughout the years, Ruth defies local pastors and nurses to help the men she cares for: Paul and Billy, Angel, Chip, Todd and Luke. Emboldened by the weight of their collective pain, she fervently advocates for their safety and visibility, ultimately advising Governor Bill Clinton on the national HIV-AIDS crisis. This deeply moving and elegiac memoir honors the extraordinary life of Ruth Coker Burks and the beloved men who fought valiantly for their lives with AIDS during a most hostile and misinformed time in America.
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Reviews
"This is a powerful memoir, cowritten with author O'Leary, about personal responsibility and the too easily forgotten beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic."
"I'm also grateful to have witnessed true courage and compassion while growing up."
"Throughout the memoir, it's hard not to fall in love with Burks for her big-heartedness and enduring sense of humor in the face of suffering."
"Her assertive willingness to offer simple, human kindness that others in her community could not be bothered to spare should now make her a heroine in the eyes of many, even those who once looked down on her for her efforts."
"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 ..."
"When AIDS advocacy turned into a big-money business, she writes, she was left out, and advances in medicine rendered her role 'obsolete.' This worthy account offers as much bitter as sweet."
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