Borrowed Time documents the final months of Roger Horwitz’s life after his 1986 AIDS diagnosis, narrated by his partner, Paul Monette. The record moves chronologically through a series of opportunistic infections, hospitalizations, and experimental drug trials like AZT. Monette details the logistical burdens of private caregiving, the political inaction of the federal government during the height of the epidemic, and the social isolation that followed the sudden illness of their friends. It provides a precise medical and emotional accounting of the physical decline and neurological complications associated with the virus before effective antiretroviral therapies existed.
This book serves historians, medical ethicists, and those researching the social history of the LGBTQ+ community in the twentieth century. Readers gain a firsthand perspective on the early mismanagement of the AIDS crisis and the resilience of chosen families under duress. The text functions as a technical and personal guide to the realities of long-term palliative care and the navigation of a collapsing healthcare system. A reader walks away with a blunt understanding of the specific hardships faced by gay men during a historical period defined by mass casualty and institutional neglect.
- Published
- 1988
- Language
- EN
