The Way We Live Now

First published as a short story in the New Yorker, this slim volume focuses on a small circle of friends coping with the illness of a mutual beloved. Like a fly on the hospital wall Sontag, mostly through strands of connecting dialogue, deftly recreates a late-1980s filled with fear, benevolence and wonder as the characters try to make sense of the disease that devoured Manhattan's creative demimonde. The word AIDS is never mentioned, but anyone who soldiered through those dark days will recognize the heart-sinking horror.