And then that degree of shame that so many of us should be carrying around the fact that actually how easy it was for governments and organisations to sort of turn their back on a population and be like, oh, well, they've brought it upon themselves in a way that COVID didn't allow anybody to do.

That's the thing about shame is that it never seems to belong to the right person.

There was a lot of emphasis both with AIDS and with COVID on individual responsibility.

And like, did you give it to someone, you know, was your behavior irresponsible and did you make someone else sick when really responsibility and blame and which isn't to say we can't, you know, do things for harm reduction, but, you know, you know, wearing condoms, wearing masks, things like that, you know but really responsibility lies with people with power.

Right.

And there never seems to be enough shame to go around for the government, for in the case of HIV AIDS, you know, the church, families, hospitals, like all sorts of places with power and just not doing what they had to do to take care of their people.

Because I think that these were in the case of HIV AIDS, it's expendable populations, you know, it's queer people, it's drug users.

Could we hear a little extract from the book, please?

Um, but I'd love for us to start, if you could tell the listeners what the sort of premise is for Waiting On a Friend.

Yeah.

So the novel follows, um, a woman named Renata who is living, is from, uh, New York City, living in the East Village.

Uh, the year is 1984, and her best friend has died of what has only recently been named AIDS, and she's mourning him.

Um, she has the ability to see ghosts.

She's been working on this skill for years, developing it, and now she's using it more and more as more of her friends are starting to, to die of AIDS.

But she assumes that she's going to see Mark when, when he goes, but he doesn't show up, and this is really fueling her grief.

Yeah

So for our for our listeners and for our viewers, do you have an elevator pitch for Waiting on a Friend? Yeah.

Yeah.

So the novel takes place in 1984 in the East Village of Manhattan in New York.

And it follows a young woman named Renata.

I'm calling her a dyke about town.

And God bless the people of Penguin Random House for allowing that in all of the copy.

And she can see ghosts.

Can you talk a little bit? You're teaching at the Sackett Workshop.

... just talking about the content of the book, I wondered how closely those two things are connected.

Very close.

Thank you for asking me about that.

Um, my hope in doing that dedication is that everyone will ask me about that.

Um, and so far it's working.

So that was my Aunt Lori.

She was a hospice nurse during the AIDS crisis.

[laughs]