Andrew Holleran’s Ground Zero, first published in 1988 and consisting of 23 Christopher Street essays from the earliest years of the AIDS crisis, was hailed by the Washington Post as “one of the best dispatches from the epidemic’s height.” Twenty years later, with HIV/AIDS long recognized as a global health challenge, Holleran both reiterates and freshly illuminates the devastation wreaked by AIDS, which has claimed the lives of 450,000 gay men as well as 22 million others. Chronicle of a Plague, Revisited features ten pieces never previously republished outside Christopher Street, as well as a new introduction keenly describing and evaluating a historical moment that still informs and defines today’s world-particularly its community of homosexuals, which, arguably, is still recovering from the devastation of AIDS.

Publishers Weekly
"Masterfully rendered imagery. Confusion and terror radiate from these pages, and humor of the blackest variety predominates...While Holleran may be correct that the only thing anyone wants to read about AIDS is "CURE FOUND," his essays originally titled Ground Zero stunningly illuminate New Yorkers coping with modern tragedy."

Bay Area Reporter, 5/29/08
“Holleran's collection is a gilded valentine to days long since forgotten, but in remembering it, the era becomes eternal. This collection will make you cry—sob, even—but it might also spur you to go to Gay Pride this year, even though you may have already written it off as pass.”

Knoxville Metro Pulse, 6/4/08
“A harrowing report from the trenches…Luminescent prose…Lyrical and poignant.”

Washington Blade 6/13/08
“An invaluable record of a time of terror…Combining wit, elegy, understatement and reportage, Holleran creates words to describe an epidemic that defies language.”

Metroline, 5/30/08
“An important book.”

Augusta Metro Spirit, 6/25/08
“Breathtaking, heartbreaking prose…Holleran’s work offers a pure view of life experience in its complete form.”

Seattle Times, 6/27/08
“With grace and acumen, Holleran draws one eloquent portrait.”

Pop Matters
“A first class document…Holleran’s writings give some means by which to disentangle this otherwise unfathomable situation…It is essential reading.”

OutSmart
“The stories are important for our collective memory. There was a time when the gay community felt attacked by an invisible assailant, and Holleran (a fine writer—reason enough to own this book) records how that went, as it went. Poignant, angry, fearful, beautiful.”

Gay & Lesbian Review, Sep/Oct 2008
The emotions [these essays] capture makes it a universal drama—a cautionary tale and an unsettling look at how far we haven’t come.”

Out Front Colorado, 8/20/08
“Gems of portraiture.”
 

Andrew Holleran is also the author of a short story collection and four acclaimed novels, Dancer from the Dance, Nights in Aruba, The Beauty of Men, and Grief. He lives in Washington, D.C. and Florida.

Imprint: Da Capo Press
Distributor: Perseus Books Group
Publication Date: 05-12-2008
Pages: 304
Measurements: 8.25in X 5.50in