Book Review/Heather Seggel

Sometimes You Can Choose Your Family

Ruth Coker Burks was just 26 years old, visiting a friend in the hospital, when a red tarp and pile of untouched food trays in a doorway led her to wander down the hall and explore. She heard a small voice cry for help. The man in the room was near death, emaciated and asking for his mother. Burks let her friend know she’d be back, returned to the man, and held his hand until he died, a gesture that changed her life.

So begins “All the Young Men: A Memoir of Love, AIDS, and Chosen Family in the American South.” (Grove Press) Burks, who shares writing credit with Kevin Carr O’Leary, was shocked at the protective space suits hospital workers wore when treating AIDS patients, then furious when she learned most funeral homes would not touch their bodies. She found one that would cremate them and began burying them herself, placing their ashes in cookie jars made by a hippie potter. In no time at all, she was receiving phone calls and requests for help, and became a kind of one-stop shop serving much of the gay community in Hot Springs, Arkansas in the 1980’s.

That opening scene is so cinematic and heartbreaking, and Burks so genially draws the reader in with her quips and asides, that without realizing it we are quickly along for the ride. It’s as harrowing as one might expect, with Burks losing friends and being de facto shunned by her church as people found out what she was doing, then facing mistrust and accusations that she was a “fag hag” from the people she was fighting to serve and, whenever possible, save. But her persistence leads to a rich and unusual life as she is gradually embraced by this new family of friends.

“All the Young Men” would easily adapt to film; it’s packed with revelations, confrontations, scrappy victories and devastating losses, and includes a cameo from Burks’ childhood friend Bill, who went on to become governor and then President of the United States. What’s surprising is that for all her effort — in addition to dumpster diving for food to cook and deliver, she helped countless men get Social Security, food stamps, and housing assistance, secured drugs for them whenever possible, and lobbied public officials with epic letters about what she was seeing on the ground — Burks never made it into a position where she could influence policy directly, or even eke out a living from her labors. Taking up a collection at a drag bar to pay for admission to an AIDS conference is a great story, but it should never have happened. Sometimes her drive and pluck paper over such injustices until the reader reflects back on them.

The men she cares for have things in common besides AIDS; most of them returned to Arkansas hoping their families would take them in, only to have doors slammed in their faces. Dying of an illness about which too little was known, plus the stigma and rejection of society at large and then one’s family, meant depression and cynicism were fairly rampant. But Burks highlights the things they were grateful for, from a modest apartment with an appealing view to simple home-cooked meals.

Toward the end of the story, Burks reflects on how she was in the right place at the right time to do this particular work. Familiar with AIDS and proud sister to a gay brother, she did not hesitate to set aside the Hazmat suit and show hands-on love to men who needed it. Caring for her friend in the hospital gave her valuable lessons in dealing with Social Security and other bureaucratic hurdles they needed to clear just to be able to die with dignity. By that time we see how she just kept doing the next right thing, over and over, even as the work consumed her.

Burks’ own family history was rough; her doting father died when she was very young, and her mother was mentally ill and abusive. She married and divorced a clod who was nevertheless a good father to their daughter until he too passed away; his relatives had to be pressured into caring for their grandchild. A boyfriend who she sees most weekends turns out to be unfaithful, though he’s a hero in other ways that are surprising. There’s a kind of hard-earned grace in the sense of belonging she finally finds among the men she refers to as “my guys.” This is a heartbreaking story in so many ways, but it’s hard to put down and ultimately inspiring.

Heather Seggel is a writer living in Northern California. Email heatherlseggel@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, December 1, 2020

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