Amy Hoffman

Named to the 1998 Books for the Teen Age by the Young Adult Services Division of the New York Public Library

Finalist, Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual Book Award
Social Responsibility Roundtable of the American Library Association

Finalist, Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction
Publishing Triangle

“There are no books out there that speak to the experience of those of us who must live with the truth instead of laminating it with some face-saving altruism and heroism. Except for this one. [Hoffman has] perfect pitch on this whole deal. And [she writes] really, really well.”
—Anna Quindlen
columnist and author of One True Thing and other works

Hospital Time is necessary, powerful, full of the detail of authentic struggle, and beautifully done. Hoffman is right out there naked in real life with all her convictions and full sense of her community. Her book is a revelation.”—Dorothy Allison

“Amy Hoffman details, without flinching, what it feels like to be responsible for a friend who is dying. From the middle of an experience most of us avoid at all costs and against a backdrop of far too many deaths, Hoffman constructs a sharp political memoir about the experience of lesbian and gay families in the time of AIDS. This insightful and disquieting book delivers a moving elegy on the quality of queer friendship, straight culture’s abdication on AIDS, the meaning of mourning, and the possibility of redemption.”—Urvashi Vaid, from the foreword

“Hospital Time is a brilliantly crafted memoir about the writer's struggle to bear witness to the death of a friend. Hoffman's story, written in short, breathtakingly compressed chapters, chronicles life at the center of the AIDS epidemic: intense, terrifying, simultaneously suffused with meaning and empty. Hoffman avoids any cliche of the noble death, instead offering us a relentless view of her own excruciating moral struggles in the face of her disintegrating family. Hospital Time moves, not in a straight line, but like life does—like AIDS does—unpredictably, unforgivingly: as a series of overlapping losses, each more devastating than the last.”—Stephanie Grant, author of The Passion of Alice

“A sober examination of the caregiving role the gay and lesbian community has taken upon itself in response to the AIDS crisis…[Hoffman’s] memoir, which reads much like a novel, is built around the illness and death in 1992 of her difficult, brilliant friend, Mike Riegle. . . . Hospital Time is an honest portrait of the complex emotions that come with caring for the terminally ill.”
—Publisher’s Weekly

“Behind every AIDS statistic we hear on television or read in the newspaper are the uncounted—the friends, co-workers, and family whose lives are irrevocably altered. Hoffman, a writer living in Boston, is one of these people. Her memoir is striking in its direct and often painful portrayal of her experiences as healthcare proxy for Mike Riegle, a gay friend. . . Those who have been touched by AIDS as well as caregivers who struggle with their conflicting feelings should read this work.”
—Library Journal