Plague Years

A heartfelt meditation on a time many thought they'd never see their way through-and a self-critical look at how he got through it. . . . As the public waits for medical miracles to crush the coronavirus, Slotten's words provide a glimmer of hope. -- Jewish United Fund News This medical memoir will be welcomed as a timely and thought-provoking read. -- Choice A tense reading experience. Indeed the entire story of [Slotten's] love for a man who broke his heart sets us up for many pages of suspense. This story is woven in with memories of his young adulthood and middle years spent medically caring for AIDS patients, particularly gay men. As he comes to terms with his own advice to get tested--something he had avoided doing himself--readers may feel as if they're holding onto a fraying rope. --Terri Schlichenmeyer The Gay & Lesbian Review [A] powerful, humane and stylish memoir. -- Nature An excellently written, eminently readable, and absolutely compelling account of the AIDS epidemic, told with passion from the inside. Slotten vividly brings to life the stories of individuals lost to history and memory, as well as the experience of being a doctor on the frontline of something he never expected to encounter. -- John D'Emilio, author of Queer Legacies: Stories from Chicago's LGBTQ Past Plague Years could have been written only by a highly observant and deeply thoughtful firsthand witness, reporting the most intimate and honest moments between a physician and his patients. A moving memoir of a gay doctor's life during the most horrific years of the AIDS epidemic as well as an insightful and detailed historical document. -- Sean Strub, founder of POZ magazine and director of The Sero Project A plainspoken memoir of the AIDS onslaught by a doctor whose life and career have been spent fighting back at it, Plague Years is humane, harrowing, and--eventually, mercifully, guardedly--hopeful. It was not an easy thing for me to return to the Chicago of those early years of increasing anxiety and fear--who knows how many times Dr. Slotten and I may have unknowingly crossed paths?--but this is an important account, and well worth your time. -- Benjamin Dreyer, New York Times best-selling author of Dreyer's English Slotten recounts his experience in the clinic with acuity and sensitivity. . . . Plague Years is thus a clinical story that is layered with emotional depth and personal detail, as he grapples with both medical and personal crises. The result is captivating and transformative. -- Cleveland Review of Books Slotten's memoir of caring for AIDS patients in Chicago in the 1980s and 1990s, Plague Years, could not be more timely. . . . San Francisco and New York City have long been cast as the epicenters of the AIDS epidemic, but Slotten provides a history of another major urban center coming to grips with an illness that was unexpected and misunderstood. . . .He is unflinching in examining his own psychology, the mechanisms he erected to protect himself, articulating his sense of deficiency in a bracing confessional tone. . . What loudly echoes from Slotten's account is the commitment of caregivers to confront the uncertainty of a contagious disease. --Jerome Groopman The New York Review of Books Plague Years is a remarkable book. At once the story of a disease and a very personal and reflective memoir, 200-some pages written in a powerful narrative style at once artful and enlightening. . . .There are many truths in this stunning and important book. And there's also hope. --Rick Kogan Chicago Tribune