cover image Hospital Time - CL

Hospital Time - CL

Amy Hoffman, Amy Hoffman, Hoffman. Duke University Press, $69.95 (168pp) ISBN 978-0-8223-1927-6

In Hospital Time, Boston-based writer Hoffman offers a sober examination of the caregiving role the gay and lesbian community has taken upon itself in response to the AIDS crisis. A lesbian caring for a dying gay friend, Hoffman describes the all too common situation of the gay or lesbian family replacing the biological family at the sick man's deathbed. Her memoir, which reads much like a novel, is built around the illness and death in 1992 of her difficult, brilliant friend, Mike Riegle. And though Hoffman alludes to her anger at Mike, she is unflagging in her commitment, including acting as his health-care proxy. She both understands and resents his idiosyncrasies about food, privacy, even sex, and she captures all the vacillating emotions that accompany caring for a dying loved one. She ultimately concludes, ""As angry as I got at him, as frustrated and upset, it didn't occur to me to stop, and he knew it wouldn't, and gave me his love and trust."" Hospital Time is an honest portrait of the complex emotions that come with caring for the terminally ill. (Apr.)