AIDS Memoirs and Two Theoretical
Approaches to the Dying Process
Facing imminent mortality and with their bodies rapidly deteriorating, some
victims of AIDS have turned to memoiristic writing in an attempt to make order
out of the chaos occurring in their lives and confront their tragic fates. Some AIDS
memoirists call upon their narratives in order to vent their anger, frustration, and
sense of hopelessness in the face of overwhelming odds and their perception of an
apathetic, heartless government and public. Other memoirists utilize their narratives
as a political forum for advocating increased funding for AIDS research and
promoting heightened pubhc awareness of the AIDS epidemic. Meanwhile, some
memoirists write narratives designed not only to cope with the affliction, but to
rise above the pain and fear by reaching a higher level of spirituality or
enlightenment.
A number of AIDS memoirs are being written by artists and intellectuals—
that is, by self-reflexive individuals whose natural instincts are to try to make
sense out of the senseless, derive order out of disorder, and bring creative
illumination to the stark realities of death and dying. Andrea R. Vaucher states that
the AIDS epidemic will change how historians and future generations view art in
the context of the late twentieth century. Vaucher observes that the discernible
shift in emphasis from form to content in contemporary art may be attributed, in
part, to the force with which the AIDS crisis “has shaken the collective psyche
down to its creative bones” (7).
Of specific interest for this article are the AIDS memoirs by the following
individuals: writer Paul Monette, whose 1988 Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir
is one the first personal accounts of AIDS and stands as a testament to what it
means to fully live and love, even while dying; anthropologist Eric Michaels’
Unbecoming, a gritty and provocative 1990 diary chronichng the last year of his
life as he became increasingly ill; and writer Mark Matousek, whose 1996 memoir
Sex Death Enlightenment traces the author’s search for spiritual meaning after
being diagnosed HIV-positive.
These three memoirs have been selected for analysis because of the influence
they have had on this subgenre of autobiographical writing, as well as their diversity
in style and personal experience. Most importantly, these memoirs underscore the
impulse of artists and intellectuals, when faced with crisis, pain, and loss, to textually
draw meaning from their experience and creatively cope with their travails.
The purpose of this article is to provide a textual analysis of the autobiographical
strategies and techniques utihzed by four artists and intellectuals afflicted with