My first gay book was Borrowed Time by Paul Monette, for better or worse. I say that because, at the time, around 1990, I was a gung ho queen bursting out of the closet. Though the book was well-written, it was also a poignant testament to the horrors of AIDS. The first line was “I don’t know if I will live to finish this.” And a later line said, “We had already had all the world we were going to get.” The message was sad but true: welcome to the real world…and be careful.