Why are all the young men dying and why will no one care for them? Ruth Coker Burks sets out her life in the 80s when caring for gay men with AIDS was about as taboo as you could get.
All The Young Men – the blurb
In 1986, 26-year-old Ruth Coker Burks visits a friend in hospital when she notices that the door to one of the patient’s rooms is painted red. The nurses are reluctant to enter, drawing straws to decide who will tend to the sick person inside. Out of impulse, Ruth herself enters the quarantined space and begins to care for the young man who cries for his mother in the last moments of his life.
And in doing so, Ruth’s own life changes forever.
Erin Brockovich
I randomly picked this book up in Waterstones and am so pleased I did. I was short on non-fiction and wanted something other than the geography based books I tend to lean to. The book reads so well that at times you forget it is non fiction. The obvious comparison is Erin Brockovich – a woman who saw a wrong and did everything she could to make it right.
It’s hard to believe that we are talking about something that happened during my life time. Young men were refused treatment, cast out of society and not even allowed to be buried properly all because they had AIDS, or worse were Gay. In the face of such adversity Ruth was so brave and yet still managed to keep her faith (and her daughter). I almost think the references to Bill Clinton were unneeded as the story shone by itself without his presence. You will rage at the injustice, at virtually everyone’s attitude at that time and the pain these men went through physically and mentally. But you will come out pleased you have read it and pleased Ruth walked through that red door that day. So many men thank God she did.
