Alternating between one family’s private history and the global drama of the AIDS epidemic, Sleeping Children will urge you to confront both the chilling impact of government and pharmaceutical bureaucracy on each person touched by the virus, and the enormity of the unknowable personal tragedies underlying the statistics about AIDS. Passeron’s family lives in a state of bitter denial about their loved one’s drug use and grim diagnosis, that is echoed by the delayed response of institutions that may have the key to ending a horrific epidemic. Punctuated by Anthony Passeron’s unanswered questions about the life of his late Uncle Désiré, this visceral and thoughtfully researched work of narrative nonfiction is the impressive product of a man’s quest to uncover the truth about a tragedy that had been swept under the rug.
Thank you NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the digital ARC.
