Book Review
The following are extracts from
some of the book reviews of Positive in the Australian media.
Thousands of Australians are living with
HIV. So why should we be particularly interested in the autobiography of David
Menadue, a Melbourne AIDS activist told he was unlikely to see 40 but who turned
50 last year?
There are many reasons. Menadue has not
only been HIV-positive since 1984, but the fact that he progressed to an
AIDS-defining illness as long ago as 1989 also makes him one of the
longest-surviving people with AIDS in the country. Menadue is thus well placed
to deliver a 20-year retrospective of both the personal and political of
HIV/AIDS in Australia.
He is also a fine and engaging writer.
Applying his skills as a former teacher and magazine editor to the task, he
deftly sketches with an economy of words a series of vivid portraits of the key
relationships in his life...
Menadue’s understated strain of wry
Australian humour is present at the darkest moments: observing the macho male,
both repellent and attractive to the writer; the strictures of church teaching
growing up in the country; and the pain of growing up as gay and having AIDS…
This humble book’s power lies in its
honesty.
Steve Dow, Sydney Morning Herald
August 9-10, 2003
The title of this book has a double meaning: author David Menadue is
HIV-positive and he also has a striking positivity… While it’s a touching
memorial for too many friends, it’s also full of hope and optimism. It’s an
uplifting and important book.
Lucy Clark, The Sunday Telegraph,
Sydney, August 17, 2003
Positive is David’s autobiography and
a personal history of HIV/AIDS in Australia. Written in an accessible,
journalistic style, Positive is nonetheless suffused with David’s empathy,
vulnerability and reasonableness. It is an honest and direct personal narrative
which ranges between personal and community history.
Megan Nicholson, Positive Living,
August-September 2003
Positive is an intelligent work written
in straightforward prose and measured tone. The first part deals with
Menadue’s diagnosis and charts the first ten years of his positive existence,
during which time he became heavily involved with Victoria’s People Living
with AIDS (later HIV/AIDS) and the Victorian AIDS Council. Part two is an
account of Menadue’s early childhood and early grapplings with homosexuality
and the 1970s “camp”scene. Part Three offers an account of the latest 10
years of Menadue’s life, with chapters on AIDS politics, education and
support.
As with most works on gay themes, the
author has had to decide on his audience which, in this case, is determinedly
broad.
Tim Benzie, Sydney Star Observer,
August 8, 2003
(Menadue’s) memoir is an honest and
gentle account of growing up gay in country Victoria, involving himself in gay
politics in the 70s, living with HIV/AIDS, and helping to forge a community of
positive people in the 80s and 90s. Throughout he stresses the importance of
family (both blood relations and friends), honesty, living life to its full,
staying healthy, and maintaining a positive outlook…
Menadue’s moving and generous memoir
is a powerful testament to how we can make a difference by being true to
ourselves and being prepared to stand up for what we feel is right.
Rowland Thomson, Melbourne Community
Voice, August 1, 2003
There is a Potteresque dynamic to
this book. That is, as with Rawling’s Harry Potter books, you want to
keep on reading to find what he does next. But unlike Harry Potter who has been
criticized for never having a shit, Menadue has all the bodily and mental
functions of a robust human being. The amount of personal information never
reaches the point of you exclaiming ‘Too much information!’, but it is a
defining feature of the book.
Positive
is an autobiography of one of Australia’s most well-known HIV-positive and gay
activists. Menadue was diagnosed as positive in 1984 and with AIDS diagnosis in
1989. His engagement with the gay movement and the community-based AIDS response
has seen him involved with Melbourne’s Gay Community News in the 1970s
to the National Association of People with AIDS in the 2000s. Along the way, he
collected a medal of the Order of Australia and a life membership of the
Victorian AIDS Council. What is striking about the book is what he has chosen to
focus on and how he has chosen to write it. Rather than providing a catalog of
activisms and achievements, he gives most attention to his interactions with
people and how his was feeling (both body and mind). The nature of the
subject matter is such that others might have used the material to write one of
those opaquely-biographical first novels, but he has chosen the path of
non-fiction.
Craig
Johnston HIV Australia, November 2003
Radio Interviews
David was interviewed on ABC Radio on
the following dates. Some audio material may be downloaded from
http://
www.abc.net.au
“Life Matters” with Geraldine Doogue,
Radio National, Monday August 4, 9am
ABC Radio 774 Melbourne with Barry Cassidy, Tuesday August 5, 11.20am
ABC Radio 2CN Canberra with Andrea Close, Wednesday August 13, 2.35pm
ABC Radio 2NC Newcastle with Garth Russell, Wednesday August 13, 3.10pm
