Casey and Diana: Suggested Readings & Podcasts

Books I've Read, Re-read and Love  

And the Band Played On

By Randy Shilts

This non-fiction tome is a definitive history of the AIDS epidemic told through an investigative journalism voice. All 630 pages are compelling, page-turning, and at times terrifying. In 1981 Shilts was a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle watching his friends and colleagues die of a mysterious new ‘gay cancer’. He began documenting and reporting the crisis so early that this book’s eventual 1987 publication would make it the first, only, and still most comprehensive narrative of the early years of the AIDS crisis. It delivers a very full, broad narrative that is still finely detailed and human.

When I first read this book, it devastated and horrified me with how it wove facts, figures, and personal accounts into a compelling story. I thought this book would be dry, textbook-like, and challenging. It was anything but that. At times, I was disturbed by how ‘thrilling’ this book was written - almost like a mystery thriller. But I quickly realized that Shilts’ imperative, compelling journalistic voice is what made this book a best seller when no one was talking about AIDS or HIV. And that alone contributed much to bring awareness to the race to find treatment.

The audiobook is quite excellent and is how I read it the second time.

How to Survive a Plague

By David France

France survived many of his friends in the AIDS crisis, including Randy Shilts, and committed to paper what he lived for two decades: the rollercoaster of science and activism the AIDS pandemic went through post-1987. Incredibly informational, and notably less sensational, France answers the cliffhanger that Shilts’ And the Band Played On leaves us with - ‘how do we tame AIDS?’ It is largely an account of ACT UP and its effect on American healthcare. While being densely informational, it remains deftly personal and real. While Shilts’ book left my heart racing and worried, France’s gave me hope and belief in humanity. This book leaves you with drive and a road map of how we can continue the work and the fight to end AIDS and HIV.

This is also an excellent audiobook, and is also how I reread this book.

At Your Own Risk

By Derek Jarmon

This singular work is a tapestry of journal entries, poems, prose, newspaper clippings, and memories from Jarmon’s gay life in the UK from the 50s into the AIDS pandemic. There really isn’t another queer memoir like it. This slim volume packs a serious punch. It so beautifully weaves what it was like to be in a space in time for four decades with the experiences of queer rebirth and homosexual awakening. And it is all cut off at the knees by a mystery ‘gay plague’.

You can tell Jarmon is a film director by the way he scrapbooks his writing into episodic visions. Sometimes, I reread passages because I miss the spaces he creates in my imagination. This work will transport you and awaken rooms in your memory palace. It was spiritually transformational for me. It gave me an idea of what it was like to find queer joy and open sexuality in the 50s, 60s, and 70s - and how that ‘coming of queerness’ was ravaged by AIDS.

Breaking the Surface

By Greg Lougainis

Greg Lougainis, Olympic Gold diver and global athlete, experienced the worst imaginable outing anyone could imagine. After hitting his head on the diving board at the Summer Games and bleeding into the pool, he was forced to reveal to the world that he was living with HIV. This cumulative moment turns out to be the parting of the storm in Lougainis’ life of abuse, neglect, shame, and struggle. His autobiography is so beautifully told, and gives great insight into what it can be like to overcome deep shame, while harboring immense talent, so that one can eventually love themselves wholly.

This book was gifted to me at 16 when I came out by my mother’s lesbian friends, and it was my first time reading about an HIV experience. It was deeply moving and life-changing, mostly because this book realizes how harmful shame and stigma can be.

Books I've Read Once/Read List

Borrowed Time

By Paul Monette

Paul discovers his partner has HIV, as does Paul, and soon after his partner develops AIDS. This book is an earth-shattering memoir of how AIDS destroyed so many just-blossoming love stories - and how hard it was to live and love in the shadow of this disease.

Paul is a brilliant writer who deftly writes fiction and non-fiction, and is one of the first to do so around the topic of queer love during the AIDS crisis. The next two titles are also his, which is a reflection of how seminal he is in this topical space.

Love Alone

By Paul Monette

This memoir picks up where Borrowed Time leaves off and paints a portrait of loneliness in surviving your partner dying of AIDS.

Afterlife

By Paul Monette

Monette’s memoirs are gripping and heart-wrenching, and his fiction is followed quickly in that wake.

Body Counts

By Sean Strub

As a politics-obsessed Georgetown freshman, Sean Strub arrived in Washington, DC, from Iowa in 1976, with a plum part-time job running a Senate elevator in the US Capitol. He also harbored a terrifying secret: his attraction to men. As Strub explored the capital’s political and social circles, he discovered a parallel world where powerful men lived double lives shrouded in shame.

When the AIDS epidemic hit in the early 1980s, Strub was living in New York and soon found himself attending “more funerals than birthday parties.” Scared and angry, he turned to radical activism to combat discrimination and demand research. Strub takes you through his own diagnosis and inside ACT UP, the organization that transformed a stigmatized cause into one of the defining political movements of our time.

When We Rise

By Cleve Jones

This sweeping memoir tells the life story of longtime LGBTQ and AIDS activist Cleve Jones in a profoundly moving account from sexually liberated 1970s San Francisco, through the AIDS crisis, and up to his involvement with the marriage equality battle.

By turns tender and uproarious, When We Rise is Jones' account of his remarkable life. He chronicles the heartbreak of losing countless friends to AIDS, which very nearly killed him, too; his co-founding of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation during the terrifying early years of the epidemic; his conception of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, the largest community art project in history; the bewitching story of 1970s San Francisco and the magnetic spell it cast for thousands of young gay people and other misfits; and the harrowing, sexy, and sometimes hilarious stories of Cleve's passionate relationships with friends and lovers during an era defined by both unprecedented freedom and and violence alike.

Moving Politics: Emotion and ACT UP's Fight Against AIDS

By Deborah Gould

A book that examines the role of emotion in the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) movement, arguing that feelings like anger, hope, and solidarity were fundamental to its direct-action protests, from its rise to its decline. Gould, a sociologist and former ACT UP member, details how emotions fueled the group's street theater and demonstrations, providing a history of the organization through an analysis of its emotional dynamics.

Sanctuary: Stories from Casey House Hospice

By Patrick Conlon 

Chapter 1 - Rebecca Bragg’s account of early Casey House

Chapter 2 - Chris Shaw’s account of being security staff at Casey House

Chapter 3 - Jane Darville, 3rd executive director and founding member of Casey House.

Chapter 4 - Gloria Murrant, coordinator of volunteers in 1990.

Chapter 5 - Michael Broughton, resident of Casey House who died April 20, 1991.

Chapter 6 - Francine Geraci, a volunteer struggling with learning to wait.

Chapter 7 - John Flannery, Casey House nursing director in 1987 - 1991

Chapter 8 - Stan Gillis, housekeeper. Ally who experiences AIDS stigma by proximity.

Chapter 9 - Linda Durkee, one of the first nurses hired at Casey House

Chapter 10 - François Dansereau, partner of a Casey House Resident

This book is out of print*

Podcasts

Fiasco: the AIDS Crisis

A compelling, recent journalistic retelling of the early AIDS crisis through eight podcasts episodes. Available on YouTube and Apple Podcasts.

Link to Podcast

AIDS: The Lost Voices

A delve into British archives of lost stories from the AIDS pandemic in the UK in the 80s and 90s.

Link to Podcast

Love, Loss & Life: Real Stories From The AIDS Pandemic

A podcast series from the National HIV Story Trust, the charity telling the story of HIV and AIDS in Britain and the UK.

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Talking Stigma with Gareth Thomas

In 2019 former Welsh Rugby captain Gareth Thomas came out as HIV+. In this podcast he joins host Craig Doyle in exploring HIV stigma and homophobia through interviews with notable guests.

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Making Gay History: LGBTQ Oral Histories from the Archive

Intimate, personal portraits of both known and long-forgotten champions, heroes and witnesses to history brought to you from rare archival interviews.

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OUTSPOKEN: HIV Nurses in Canada Make Noise

A podcast that looks at the connection between nursing and HIV, and further platforms how nurses are speaking up for people living with HIV.

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With Dignity: The Story of Casey House

Nick Green talks to many people from Casey House about its history and current missions.

Link to Podcast

Positively Speaking

A podcast from Casey House directly that explores the lives of people living with and at risk of HIV.

Link to Podcast