company, but gay companies such as Lionheart did operate out of other theaters. Some of the events of the 1990 AMA demonstration have been compressed. And while the restaurant Ann Sather has been a constant source of support to Chicago’s gay community, and was host to many fundraising events, there was not, as far as I know, a benefit there for Howard Brown in December of 1985.
I’d feel bad if I didn’t say that the new penguin enclosure at the Lincoln Park Zoo is spectacular, and the penguins look happy; there is nothing grimy or depressing about it now.
There isn’t as much in book or film form about Chicago’s AIDS crisis as I’d hoped when I began this project. Fortunately, I can recommend a few excellent sources if you want to learn more. MK Czerwiec has written a beautiful graphic novel, Taking Turns, about her time as a nurse on Illinois Masonic’s AIDS Care Unit 371. She’s been a friend to this book as well, and was an invaluable early reader. The documentary film Short Fuse, about the life of Chicago ACT UP founder Daniel Sotomayor, is hard to find but absolutely worth watching. Two writers, Tracy Baim and Owen Keehnen, have done much of the heavy lifting in recording Chicago’s gay history. I found their journalism and books incredibly helpful, and am additionally grateful to both of them for giving me their time. Owen was also a brilliant early reader for the novel; if you’re in the city, stop in and see him at Unabridged Bookstore.
The online archives and oral histories available through the Windy City Times—archives Tracy Baim is largely responsible for—are a treasure. The Windy City Times itself began publishing in 1985, and I’m grateful to the Harold Washington Library for keeping those earliest issues available. (Speaking of Harold Washington, a tangential acknowledgment: The words he speaks in this book at the 1986 Pride parade are his own.) The Gerber/Hart Library is a wonderful resource on LGBTQ issues and history and provided me with essential assistance and materials. There is footage currently available on YouTube of the April 1990 march on the AMA, and I recommend it highly. The best written account I’ve found of the protest is “The Angriest Queer,” from the August 16, 1990, issue of the Chicago Reader. Photographer Doug Ischar’s series Marginal Waters beautifully documents gay life on the Belmont Rocks in the ’80s; while I imagine Richard Campo’s fictional work to be quite different from Ischar’s, I’m thankful to him and to the other photographers, both artistic and journalistic, who brought the era to life for me.
This project was undertaken with a great deal of ongoing thought and conversation and concern about the line between allyship and appropriation—a line that might feel different to different readers. It is my great hope that this book will lead the curious to read direct, personal accounts of the AIDS crisis—and that any places where I’ve gotten the details wrong might inspire people to tell their own stories.
Some book world thanks: Kathryn Court and Victoria Savanh; Nicole Aragi, Duvall Osteen, and Grace Dietshe; Eric Wechter; Francesca Drago. Three intrepid summer interns came to me courtesy of DePaul University: Felipe Cabrera, Megan Sanks, and Natasha Khatami. Gina Frangello, Thea Goodman, Dika Lam, Emily Grey Tedrowe, Zoe Zolbrod, and Jon Freeman were essential early readers. Portions of this novel were researched and written at Yaddo, Ucross, and Ragdale residencies. This book, like so many others, wouldn’t have been possible without support from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Huge thanks to Maureen O’Brien, Patty Gerstenblith, Adair McGregor, and Cassie Ritter Hunt on the subjects of art, inheritance, and university galleries; and to Paul Weil, Steve Kleinedler, Todd Summar, J. Andrew Goodman, Michael Anson, Amanda Roach, Amy Norton, Charles Finch, and Edward Hamlin, for conversations and introductions too varied to enumerate.
Lydia and Heidi, thank you for being so good at entertaining yourselves while I was writing and editing.
Most important, my endless thanks for the time, patience, and encouragement of those who lived through all this and sat down to coffee or let me into their homes or emailed with me endlessly, in many cases about personal and traumatic things. In addition to the writers mentioned above, thanks to Peggy Shinner; to TB; to Justin Hayford of the Legal Council for Health Justice (a tireless resource and amazing early reader); to Dr. David Moore, Dr. David Blatt, and Russell Leander, who made Unit 371 a beautiful place; to Bill McMillan, who was out there on that ledge with the banner; to the inimitable and indomitable Lori Cannon; and to the memories of the amazing men you all told me about. I did my best.