The Gravest Show On Earth: America in the age of AIDS

The Story

Readers meet the major players - from activist/playwright Larry Kramer to scientist Robert Gallo and MTV star Pedro Zamora - and watch them in action at home, in their laboratories, and at demonstrations. We see Jonas Salk manipulating his company's stock prices by carefully parceling out research information, Henry Heimlich peddling malaria as the magic bullet that will kill HIV, and federally funded scientists making 'advertorials' for the drug companies whose products they test. We are taken into the streets at political funerals and behind the scenes of the negotiations at which leaders of the AIDS service industry divide up government funding for the dying. We read detailed accounts of the tensions that AIDS has caused in the African American community and of the fight staged by women to end the nation's decades-long policy of approving drugs tested only on men.