Eighty Sixed by Kenneth R. Feinberg

A darkly comic and poignant portrait of a gay man in New York City as the carefree sexual liberation of the early 1980s collides with the fear and loss of the AIDS crisis. Structured in contrasting “before” and “after” sections, it traces the narrator’s evolution from sardonic, promiscuous detachment to a more vulnerable, self-aware reckoning with mortality, friendship, and the reshaping of community. The result is a sharp, unsentimental chronicle of desire, denial, and resilience during a transformative and tragic era.