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In the early years of the AIDS epidemic, a diagnosis was tantamount to a death sentence. Early HIV treatments were ineffectual, often toxic; many believed some treatments might even hasten death rather than extend it.
The characters in Be Safe draw the reader in through lengthy digression into seemingly insignificant details, a writing style that seems to eschew traditional cause-and-effect story elements in favor of one that’s purely observational, or in more conventional terms, stream-of-consciousness.
Be Safe focuses on a group of long-term survivors, gay men who began using hard drugs to get through what they perceived as pointless lives. Living on the installment plan, one blood test to the next, they’ve grown comfortable with the nihilism that hard drugs necessitate. So when protease inhibitors bring the possibility of longer life, the characters in Be Safe see these possibilities as burdens to be endured. They’ve grown comfortable in their seats on the death train; they see little benefit in jumping on the life bandwagon.
But far from being a narrative devoid of any hope whatsoever, Be Safe examines the lives of the willfully blind who are unable to see that simple existence itself relies on a predicate of hope. These guys just can’t see that the simple act of breathing in and out relies on a basic form of optimism: hope for a better day. But it’s not their fault. They’re just garden-variety Americans trying to make sense of the senseless.
Revelation finally arrives, but its vehicle is embodied by a completely unexpected source: a prescient radio announcer with sinus problems who’s decided to play a group of Polish mazurkas for his radio audience, a musical form that grows to magical proportions.
Copies of Be Safe are available at all major booksellers, including Black Rose Writing, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble
Review copies available upon request
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Contact: Taylor Williams / Book Publicist, Black Rose Writing
About Black Rose Writing
Black Rose Writing is an independent publishing house that strongly believes in developing a personal relationship with their authors. The Texas-based publishing company doesn’t see authors as clients or just another number on a page, but rather as individual people… people who deserve an honest review of their material and to be paid traditional royalties without ever paying any fees to be published.
