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Words Uli Lenart

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BOOK OF THE MONTH

Holding out for a hero

The incredibly moving, true story of Ruth Coker Burks, who helped the dying during the Aids crisis

ALL THE YOUNG MEN

Ruth Coker Burks/Trapeze

In the face of the early Aids crisis, a tragedy of gut-wrenching suffering only made worse by stigma and bigotry, one woman made a stand. Her name is Ruth Coker Burks, and she is a true hero (indeed, Ruth was honoured with the Hero Award at the 2019 Attitude Awards). Her deeply moving and endearingly sassy story will make you cry, scream, laugh and then cry all over again. In 1986, 26-year-old Ruth is visiting a friend in an Arkansas hospital when she notices a patient’s door painted red, with trays of food piled up on the floor, the nurses reluctant to enter. Out of impulse, she goes into the quarantined space and begins to care for the young man lying there, crying for his mother in the last moments of his life. And in doing so, Ruth’s life changes forever. Doctors didn’t want to treat these men; their mothers wouldn’t visit them; undertakers refused to take their bodies; no cemetery would accept their ashes. So, Ruth, an everyday working mother, stepped up. She raided supermarket bins for food to feed them, she hustled to get them benefits, started HIV-testing them herself, she advocated, spoke out, organised medications and treated these men like human beings. She sat with them through the night and held their hands as they died, burying their ashes in secret on a family plot. The power of this story is hard to convey, but it honours those beautiful young men with the truth. Please, just read this extraordinary book. Out now