If you have any interest in the global fight against HIV/AIDS, or in how the disease impacts the families/friends/communities of those infected, or are curious about life in Cuba, or want to know more about U.S./Cuban relations, then this is a book you need to read. The author’s loving descriptions of people whose lives have been directly and intimately impacted by HIV/AIDS humanizes the meaning of this epidemic. It is more than just telling their stories, it is the rich attention to detail and nuance that help us feel as if we’ve met these folks and they are now our friends as well. In the honest and moving sharing of her own story, Schwolsky sheds new light on how public health policies, cultural norms and challenges to old ways of thinking are all part of the fight to save lives and the struggle for a better world.

                                    Leslie Cagan, lifelong social justice organizer, former National
Coordinator of United For Peace and Justice (UFPJ), and
founder/coordinator of the Cuba Information Project.