Beyond Love

With his customary flair for high drama, trenchant characterizations and journalistic savvy, French author Lapierre ( City of Joy ) tells the story of the global battle against the AIDS epidemic as no one has told it before. In this extraordinary, deeply moving book, Mother Theresa's work supervising New York City's first hospice for AIDS victims provides the spiritual anchor of a narrative that hops from Calcutta to Paris's Pasteur Institute to Atlanta's Center for Disease Control, where microbe hunters struggle to overcome an ``artful and discreet'' adversary, the AIDS virus. Lapierre interweaves dozens of personal dramas as he records researchers' frantic efforts, patients' mental anguish and the odyssey of Sister Ananda, former Indian leper who went on to heroic efforts in caring for persons with AIDS. 100,000 first printing; $150,000 ad/promo; first serial to Vanity Fair; Literary Guild featured alternate; author tour. (Mar.)