Yelena Maksimova

Dr. Miller

English 105 sec.84/85

Summary/Revision Paper

No Immunity

Paul Monette in his autobiography, “Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir” wants to make the younger generation aware of all the mistakes, suffering and deaths his generation went through fighting with AIDS, as he is convinced that it might help the new generation survive. He wrote his life story in 1988, soon after he was diagnosed with HIV and two years after his partner and close friend Roger Horwitz died of AIDS.

Disease split his time into the life before and the life now and it will inevitably take his life as a tribute to its devastating power. Not knowing if he will survive long enough to finish his book, Monette accepted his fate and gave up the hope of getting cured. Still taking his medicine and waiting for a medical breakthrough mostly as a matter of habit, he recognizes that the disease wiped off holidays from his calendar and left only one date to remember – that of his lover’s death.

It is almost impossible for Monette and his friends to determine when the bad times began. Gradually, rumors of a terrible disease became a reality. In 1982, an undefined “gay cancer” became AIDS. Having started in New York, it spread all over the country and eventually came to L.A. gaining its power slowly and spreading terror among the homosexual community. There was no escape: neither medicine nor willpower could cure this disease.

Monette recalls his thoughts after reading the first serious report about AIDS and not finding any signs of the disease in himself at the time. He felt “relieved” and “safe” and thought that he and his friend were not in immediate danger even though they were in one of the high-risk social groups. For several years after that report, he subconsciously denied the possibility of becoming sick, reasoning that AIDS killed “them,” gays from different social classes or leading promiscuous sexual life. Monette thought he and his friend were different.

By that time, his friend Roger had already been through an unexplained series of illnesses. At first he was diagnosed with amoebas, a type of sexually transmitted diseases. Together, Paul and Roger underwent a tough course of treatment, but only after it was complete did they find out that Roger was misdiagnosed. They “were ticking and didn’t even know.” However, based on that experience they became very cautious. Monette asserts that the problem back then was that nobody knew just how cautious people had to be. They led their sexual lives based of what they perceived was safe. For instance, Monette considered a small circle of sexual partners or occasional sex with chance encounters fairly safe. Apparently that behavior could not keep disease away and Paul and his friends “were making [one another] sick.” The carefree days were over, and when they found out the truth, it was too late.

Monette asserts that another problem back then was that AIDS was not well known or well studied and information about it was frequently misleading. For example, he recalls an episode when a friend told him after a conversation with a scientist that a human might become sick after the first sexual contact with an HIV carrier. The information they got from the press was just the opposite. For months they were convinced of the “significance of repeated exposure.” Still trying to deny reality, they believed that if they behaved HIV would pass them over and infect only those who were promiscuous, but no miracle occurred. The disease swept away their fragile barricades of hopes and beliefs: Roger Horwitz was diagnosed with AIDS in 1985 and died nineteen months later. Monette acknowledges that one may fight with AIDS as hard as possible but all his efforts would in the end be in vain, because there is still no cure.

Thus he addresses the next generation believing that the stories of those who died or are dying of AIDS may help young people realize that there is no “us” and “them” in the world where everyone at risk of getting AIDS.

Works Cited

Monette, Paul. “Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir.” One World, Many Cultures. Stuart

Hirschberg, Terry Hirschberg. New York: Longman, 2000. 174-177.