Facing It: A Novel of AIDS

Originally published in 1984 by Gay Sunshine Press, Paul Reed's Facing It is the first American novel to deal with the emerging holocaust that is the AIDS crisis. This edition features a new introduction by Jerry Rosco, author of the biography Glenway Wescott Personally and editor of the Wescott journals Continual Lessons and A Heaven of Words."Reed established himself at the forefront of the literary response to AIDS... Facing It: A Novel of AIDS narrates the emergent realities of the epidemic through its protagonist Andy and his family physician Dr. Walt Branch. Both characters struggle to cope with Andy's mysterious debilitating illness and eventual death from AIDS-related complications . . . With this novel, Reed initiated a writing career that determinedly grappled with the evolving concerns of HIV epidemiology, even as the most personal contours of his private life were simultaneously and gravely impacted by the virus." -Mark John Isola, Encyclopedia of Contemporary LGBTQ Literature of the United States"Facing It is that rare novel - published in 1984 it is one of the first fictional works about HIV/AIDS - that radiates both the fierce energy of dispatches from the front lines and nuanced emotional consideration of what it means to be alive. At times blunt, even brutish about the horrific inequities of the epidemic's early years, Facing It chronicles the everyday details of living in a - personal, social, political, medical - crisis when the very act of writing sustains hope and resembles something like salvation." -Michael Bronski, author of Pulp Friction: Uncovering the Golden Age of Gay Male Pulps, A Queer History of the United States, and co-editor of Invisible History: The Collected Poems of Walta Borawski"Paul Reed's Facing It sounded the first call to the ravages, horrors, and duplicitous national reaction to the beginning of AIDS. An indictment, as well as a mirror of hope, its revelations still compel." -Philip F. Clark, author of The Carnival of Affection"Facing It will help us to face not just AIDS but the random cruelties and rare beauties of this life. Mr. Reed has done us all a good turn by writing this novel." -Rita Mae Brown, author of Rubyfruit Jungle, blurb from the original edition Paul Reed was born in California in 1956 and along with Facing It he was the author of several works of fiction, memoir and nonfiction, including safe-sex erotica under the pen name Max Exander. He died in January 2002 of AIDS-related complications. Read more