To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life

In To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life, critically acclaimed French writer Hervé Guibert has created an unnervingly intimate novel about an imaginative and vital young man confronting the ominous spectre of AIDS in his life. Le Nouvel Observateur calls it “a masterpiece.”

Written in the form of a journal, this novel offen both an unflinchingly honest examination of daily life under a death sentence, and the impact of the disease on a group of gifted and artistic people—a circle of French artists and intellectuals spinning out of control in shared fear and uncertainty, discovering that talent and genus offer little solace: Muzil, the brilliant young philosopher whose dangerous underground exploits have life-and-death consequences; Marine, the eccentric and unreliable movie star who uses her jet-set life as an escape from reality; Muzil’s friends and lovers, who attempt to salvage the groundbreaking texts that Muzil is both furiously churning out and trying to destroy before his death; and the narrator himself, who, upon discovering that he is also infected with the virus, runs from doctor to doctor, searching for answers, terrified and yet fascinated by the changes he and his friends are undergoing.

The world of To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life is not merely one in which AIDS has suddenly appeared, it is a place where intellect and creativity, sexuality and friendship, responsibility and continuity—whether they ultimately help or fail—are the only things worth fighting for.