A Fragile Circle: A Memoir

Rating:
Summary: A Fragile Circle is Definitely Worth Reading!
Review: A Fragile Circle provides a very honest and personal account of what went on in the hearts and minds of many who were most directly in the path of HIV from the outset. As a surviving 'footsoldier', Mark Senak's account of having been plunged into a state of secret panic, paranoia, ostracism and devastating loss is told in a way that not only challenges our collective level of compassion and response to this pandemic but holds the reflective mirror in a way that one is bound to examine the truth of our very own brand of fear and denial.

I felt the book flowed easily, was engaging and very conversational with many moments of wit, insight and interesting metaphor - without feeling contrived or 'cute'. Senak has the natural grace of the few who can share themselves so personally without the self importance or indulgence that can reduce so much to so little in the end.

You might expect page after page of a book on this subject to be morbid, angry and certainly bitter. ! After all, well beyond their rightful place at the table, those feelings are the cornerstones of many of our experiences with AIDS. For me, this book is not simply about reliving the early days of the HIV and AIDS crisis, it's about ordinary people living through and doing extraordinary things, finding courage we wouldn't imagine possible and being presented with the greatest revelations of love in the process.

I decided to take the time to write this review because I hope this book finds its way into the hands of every and anyone interested in what has taken place below the surface of life in 'the now'...Because as tragic and untenable as living through an entire generation of HIV and AIDS is, A Fragile Circle memorializes that fact but reminds us that ultimately, beyond the pain of consciousness, reconciliation is very different than acceptance, and an important part of both living and healing.

Rating:
Summary: A Fragile Circle is Definitely Worth Reading!
Review: A Fragile Circle provides a very honest and personal account of what went on in the hearts and minds of many who were most directly in the path of HIV from the outset. As a surviving 'footsoldier', Mark Senak's account of having been plunged into a state of secret panic, paranoia, ostracism and devastating loss is told in a way that not only challenges our collective level of compassion and response to this pandemic but holds the reflective mirror in a way that one is bound to examine the truth of our very own brand of fear and denial.

I felt the book flowed easily, was engaging and very conversational with many moments of wit, insight and interesting metaphor - without feeling contrived or 'cute'. Senak has the natural grace of the few who can share themselves so personally without the self importance or indulgence that can reduce so much to so little in the end.

You might expect page after page of a book on this subject to be morbid, angry and certainly bitter. ! After all, well beyond their rightful place at the table, those feelings are the cornerstones of many of our experiences with AIDS. For me, this book is not simply about reliving the early days of the HIV and AIDS crisis, it's about ordinary people living through and doing extraordinary things, finding courage we wouldn't imagine possible and being presented with the greatest revelations of love in the process.

I decided to take the time to write this review because I hope this book finds its way into the hands of every and anyone interested in what has taken place below the surface of life in 'the now'...Because as tragic and untenable as living through an entire generation of HIV and AIDS is, A Fragile Circle memorializes that fact but reminds us that ultimately, beyond the pain of consciousness, reconciliation is very different than acceptance, and an important part of both living and healing.

Rating:
Summary: An important and touching memoir of the AIDS epidemic
Review: Full disclosure - as founding president of NY's Bar Association for Human Rights, I was present to observe some of the events Mark Senak describes in this important and touching memoir of the AIDS epidemic. This is an important book, especially for younger folks who came of age at a later point in the epidemic and whose understanding of the current challenges should be informed by the experiences of the past. Unfortunately, it appears that Mark's manuscript received the kind of "hands-off" editing characteristic of all too many small presses today. A really good editor would have helped him to shape it into a much more effective book, and a thorough copy editor would have taken care of the occasional incomplete sentences, run-together sentences, and rare but distracting grammatical faux pas. But that's beside the point and doesn't get in the way of communication. Some of the stories he has to tell are absolutely priceless and compelling, especially concerning his experiences in supervising deathbed will ceremonies and the support and care for his lover, Joe. I urge those concerned with AIDS issues to read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Multiple perspectives on the AIDS crisis
Review: This frequently moving memoir wears three distinctly different hats. First, it is a vivid portrait of a young lawyer who feels compelled to join the front lines of the emerging AIDS crisis. Senak was there at the beginning in the early 1980s, when the main work of those who cared was to help people die, when no one knew how the disease was transmitted or who would get it. The first third of the book presents some astounding stories, both of cowardice and cruelty and extraordinary courage. Second, it is a moving love story as Senak chronicles his meeting and brief, happy existence with Joseph, a waiter/actor with AIDS who turns to him for help. Third, it is a tale of an altogether different existence for Senak as he moves to Los Angeles and witnesses the disease invading ever more privileged and glamorous circles.

This multi-tiered perspective of the effect of this plague on the American social fabric gives Senak's book a special fascination. As in many first-person accounts of personal crisis, his passages of tortured self-analysis occasionally provoke impatience. There is ample compensation in the sparely written, and therefore all the more powerful, passages that recount in stark fashion the gradual decline and death of his partner. In these pages, Senak's work joins a select body of great literature that has arisen from this dark and still ongoing chapter in American social history.