Normal Heart and the Destiny of Me Book

On April 13, I am participating in the 2019 AIDS Walk Ohio. In preparation for the day, I decided to re-read one of the seminal works of literature written during the height of the HIV / AIDS epidemic, Larry Kramer's play, The Normal Heart.

On June 5, 1981, the U.S. Center for Disease Control published an article describing cases of a rare lung infection in five young, white, previously healthy gay men in Los Angeles. The report stated that Los Angeles immunologists believed the immune system of the five men had been impaired. All five men died.

At first, this emergent disease was called GRID (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency) because it was thought only gay men contracted it. By the end of the year, however, some drug users also had contracted it. The following year, 1982, the disease was called AIDS, and no one knew how it was contracted or caused.

However, likely because the disease disproportionately affected the gay community, the press, government, and religious institutions paid it little attention. In fact, the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, never publicly acknowledged the disease until September 17, 1985 after actor Rock Hudson died. That same year, approximately 5,636 other people died of the disease in the US, most of whom were gay men.

By the end of 1985, there had already been 15,527 cases of AIDS reported in the US and 12,529 deaths. By then, it was clear to the gay community that it was on its own.

It was in this same year that playwright and activist, Larry Kramer, produced his Off-Broadway play, The Normal Heart.Somewhat autobiographical, Kramer's play, written in stark plain language and moving scenes which never feature some if the hallmarks of early gay writing'camp humor, irony, and over-the-top extravagant language--tells the impact the growing epidemic had on the gay community in New York City between 1981 and 1984. It is a story of love, activism, distrust, hatred, pain, ignorance, sorrow, apathy, fear, and rage.

The play opens in New York when an unidentified disease begins to take the life of gay men. Dr. Emma Brookner, a physician and polio survivor finds herself treating more men, yet there is no information about the disease. Nobody knows its cause or how it is spread, though she begins to suspect it may be sexually transmitted.

Brookner soon meets with writer, Ned Weeks and tells him he must spread the message that gay men must stop having sex. Weeks reminds her that with the sexual revolution of the 60s and the Stonewall Riots of 1969, many gay men were having sex, and lots of it with lots of different partners. They were determined to be able to live and love openly and freely. They would not go backward and deny acting on their sexuality after so many centuries of oppression and repression. Brookner bluntly tells Weeks the men will have to choose sex or death.

As men Ned knows continue to die, he begins to act. He meets with a small group of people to create an advocacy organization to call attention to the disease. While he prefers loud and confrontational strategies to gain the attention of gay men as well as the government of New York, the other board members are more cautious, private, polite, and quiet. Confrontations erupt that threaten to undermine their goals.

At the same time, while trying to get a newspaper to report on the growing crisis, Weeks meets New York Times columnist, Felix Turner and, for the first time, falls in love. Not long afterward, Felix shows symptoms of the disease.

As Felix grows progressively worse, the disease becomes an epidemic, and the straight-controlled institutions continue to show no concern, Weeks realizes many people in the straight population do not care that gay men are dying, and many are thankful for the disease. Weeks, therefore, becomes even more confrontational and direct in his actions. Dr. Brookner, too, becomes more active in her pursuit of government help.

As the play ends, there is some expression of hope that the gay community would not go back into hiding and may even gain some acceptance, but it is juxtaposed with the rapidly growing numbers of dead men and the knowledge that the disease is spreading across the globe.

The Normal Heart is the story of conflicts that developed as gay men were beginning to understand themselves as an oppressed and hated minority group rather than as individuals who were mentally ill criminals certain to burn in hell. It is the story of an emergent community beginning to refuse oppression and repression while learning to celebrate itself in the open. But it was also a community that was faced with how much the straight community hated them as governments, churches, medical professionals, press, family members, and others remained silent and passive as the horrific disease killed gay men by the thousands.

The play suggests how a disease brings people learning what it means to be gay into a community formed as the consequence of'and the resistance to--oppression, and shows how this emergent community began learning to care for itself, to see itself in a new light, to break the bonds of oppression, and to harness the pain and anger necessary to never go back into the shadows.

The Normal Heart is not a perfect play though it is an important one. At times, Kramer's anger jumps off the page, but this is understandable as we remember that he, and others, were watching their friends and lovers die while wondering when they might be the next. The Normal Heart is still one of the most important pieces of literature about the early years of HIV / AIDS and is important today as we seek to understand those who lived through the epidemic. It is also an angry and bold play that demands people to become active in their politics and communities, but it also makes clear the messiness of that activism.

HIV / AIDS is seldom in the news today, yet the virus and disease are still with us, especially in places such as Africa. Though it is now manageable for large numbers of people who have access to healthcare, there still is no vaccine. There still is no cure.