Personal dispatches : writers confront AIDS /

Few AIDS novels or memoirs are as impressive as many of the much shorter writings in this set of new and reprinted essays. For instance, "Wandering the Woods in a Season of Death," Allan Troxler's contrapuntal meditation on the woods of his North Carolina home and the sickening and death of an old friend. Or Craig Rowland's paradoxically cool and intense account of being upon "The Examination Table" at disparate times between 1981 and 1988. Or Scott Tucker's personalized defense of "the sexual and social communalism of `queers.'" These represent the literary essay at its most powerful, and there are several more as strong. Notes on contributors appended. --Ray Olson

This affecting anthology reprinting works of gay writers--Andrew Holleran, Edmund White, Robert Gluck and many lesser known authors--reflects the personal and political impact on the gay community and movement of the epidemic. The pieces vary from the lyrical to the polemical, from angry to mystical--and all are bound by a common fear and need to bear witness. Most poignant are accounts of homophobic parents who devotedly nurse their terminally ill ``prodigal'' children and ``buddy'' care-givers who themselves are doomed. Preston ( Safe Sex , etc.), who is also infected, demonstrates how self-righteous elements in society use AIDS to attack gay sexuality and how the gay community has reacted with solidarity and support of its victims. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Courage, grief, and fear shimmer through these essays--half original, half reprints--mostly by gay writers on the toll of AIDS. Editor Preston, writer-in-residence of the Portland (Maine) AIDS Project and himself AIDS-positive, sets the tone with a powerful introduction explaining how, although commissioned in 1986, many of the pieces arrived late: ""the disease was eating us up, taking away our energy."" But the writers came through, delivering such strong articles as Andrew Holleran's exploration and indictment of ""The Fear"" of AIDS; Laurence Tate's episodic, poignant account of working for an AIDS hotline (""The Epidemic: A San Francisco Diary""); Craig Rowland's ""The Examination Table"": and Steve Beery's sentimental memoir of a lover (""Steve"") dying of AIDS. Overall: brave reporting from a devastating front. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.