Hold Tight Gently

I would urge you to buy this book ...

You can do it here, among other places.

I knew the top guy -- Michael Callen -- a little bit in the Eighties.  Anybody who worked in the ad/pr agency world during that sad period of time saw the AIDS epidemic cut through the gay community of New York like ... well, it wasn't like anything I've ever seen.  I'd use the word plague, but there's a pejorative context to plague that bugs me in this particular situation.  No matter what word you use, effective treatment for AIDS didn't really emerge til the early 90s and before that it was just carnage.

You should read Michael's wikipedia page.  Quite a special man.

I worked at a public relations agency that hit its peak around 1985.  We had about 18 employees, half men, half women.  One day I looked up from my desk ... early 1990-something ... and realized every male employee from that era other than the agency owner and me had died.

Obviously it was more complicated than that, but still ...

Plus, what a great title.