Strong Shadows

Zuger, who works in the infectious disease clinic at Bellevue Hospital in New York City, here tells the stories of eight of her HIV-positive and AIDS patients, ranging from the self-effacing man who would wait patiently for her for six hours and report that everything was going well (it wasn't) to the woman who used her illness to grab attention. Their conditions varied from fatal malignant lymphoma to an HIV-positive diagnosis that has not developed into AIDS in six years. Zuger's patients were almost all from the so-called underclass and had to cope with poverty at home while being treated in a system in which, in the 1980s, AIDS care was ``primeval'' and, in the '90s, ``merely primitive.'' Five of these patients have died, and the author has lost touch with the others, but readers will feel admiration for her and others in the front lines of the battle against this scourge. Author tour. (Sept.)