The hidden history of a vulnerable gay man whose life and death
were turned into tabloid fodder. In the early 1990s, eight people
living in a small conservative Florida town alleged that Dr. David
Acer, their dentist, infected them with HIV. David's gayness, along
with his sickly appearance from his own AIDS-related illness, made
him the perfect scapegoat and victim of mob mentality. In these
early years of the AIDS epidemic, when transmission was little
understood, and homophobia rampant, people like David were
villainized. Accuser Kimberly Bergalis landed a People magazine
cover story, while others went on talk shows and made front page
news. With a poet's eulogistic and psychological intensity, Steven
Reigns recovers the life and death of this man who also stands in
for so many lives destroyed not only by HIV, but a diseased society
that used stigma against the most vulnerable. It's impossible not
to make connections between this story and how the twenty-first
century pandemic has also been defined by medical misinformation
and cultural bias. Inspired by years of investigative research into
the lives of David and those who denounced him, Reigns has stitched
together a hauntingly poetic narrative that retraces an American
history, questioning the fervor of his accusers, and recuperating a
gay life previously shrouded in secrecy and shame. "Much too long,
suffering has been part of our collective queer legacy. We weather
the storm of insult to character and seemingly irreconcilable
injustice in tandem with the hope that the arc of time will bend
towards justice; our time is now. A Quilt for David is a posthumous
journal of vindication."-Brontez Purnell, author of 100 Boyfriends
"A stunning homage to people with AIDS."-Sarah Schulman, author of
Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York,
1987-1993 "I found this an incredibly moving book. Reigns deals in
hard truths, revisioning one man's life and death, and our
collective queer history."-Justin Torres, author of We the Animals
"A Quilt for David is amazing and so powerful, filled with anger
and frustration . . . It's an unforgettable book."-Marie Cloutier,
Greenlight Bookstore, Brooklyn, NY "Told in short, occasionally
haiku-like entries, Reigns has done what literature should: put the
reader into the mind, the suffering, of another human
being."-Andrew Holleran, author of Chronicle of a Plague, Revisited
"Steven Reigns lifts David Acer thirty years after his death to
show the naked cost of violent, unexamined public opinion around
the catastrophe of AIDS. This poetry masterfully documents the
tangle of hatred and lies haunting a generation of survivors. I am
often grateful for what poems give to me, most especially the ones
in this book."-CAConrad, author of AMANDA PARADISE: Resurrect
Extinct Vibration "This writing is energetic, alive, and
uncensored. Through poetry and prose we glean a deep understanding
of a life misunderstood and mischaracterized. Reigns goes to the
mat to find out what really happened, and with his expert pacing
we're right there with him."-Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing
Down the Bones "One of the most important roles a poet can assume
is that of emotional historian. Reigns certainly understands that
notion in this necessary and genre-bending book."-Richard Blanco,
2013 Presidential Inaugural Poet, author of How to Love a Country
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