Silence, Exile, and Cunning:Three works of fiction that turn everything you know about the epidemic upside down.

By: Charles Ortleb

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

"Silence, Exile, and Cunning" is a trilogy of must-read fiction ("Iron Peter," "The Last Lovers on Earth," and "The Closing Argument") by Charles Ortleb, who was one of the most controversial journalists and publishers during the AIDS epidemic. From 1981 until 1997, Charles Ortleb was the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of New York Native, described in Wikipedia as "the only gay paper in New York during the early part of the AIDS epidemic" which "pioneered reporting on the AIDS epidemic when others ignored it." On May 18, 1981, New York Native published the world's very first report on the disease that would become known as AIDS. In his book, "And the Band Played On," Randy Shilts described the New York Native coverage of the epidemic as being "singularly thorough" and "voluminous." In Rolling Stone, David Black said that New York Native deserved a Pulitzer prize for its AIDS coverage. In an interview in New York Press, Nicholas Regush, a producer for ABC News and a reporter for Montreal Gazette, said that New York Native did "an astounding job" in its coverage of AIDS and credited it with "educating him early on." In a profile titled "The Outsider" in Rolling Stone in 1988, Katie Leishman wrote that "It is undeniable that many major AIDS stories were Ortleb's months and sometimes years before mainstream journalists took them up. Behind the scenes he exercises an enormous unacknowledged influence on the coverage of the medical story of the century." "Iron Peter" is a satirical novel about a gorgeous gay man who comes to New York City to try and save the gay community from being destroyed by the lies the government is telling about AIDS. It may be the only novel ever written that dares to tell the inconvenient truth about the politics and science of "AIDS." The Boston Globe's Michel Saunders called it "a funny satirical novel." David Judson of Gannett News Service said that Ortleb's "biting prose is certain to touch all manner of raw nerves. Journalist Celia Farber called the book "the 'Animal Farm' of the AIDS era." "The Last Lovers on Earth" is the first collection of short stories by Charles Ortleb. The stories capture the precarious position of gay people in America today. With unprecedented insight, Ortleb uses humor to tell painful truths about where the gay community has been and where it is headed.Three stories from the collection were the basis of the unique independent film, "The Last Lovers on Earth" which is available as a DVD and for instant viewing on Amazon. John Lauritsen said this about the short story collection: "Beautifully written, wildly imaginative fables, which puncture a great many sacred balloons, gay and straight. AIDS activists, government 'scientists', doctors, suburban Parents of Gays, 'Queer Theorists' -- all get their comeuppance. I could only read this book a few paragraphs at a time -- gasping, laughing, and then thinking. And after reflection, some of Ortleb's most shocking and outrageous statements emerged as expressions of common sense and decency in a world going viciously mad. The first story, 'The Retraction', has the most brilliantly hilarious satirization of schadenfreude since Mark Twain's 'Emmeline Grangerford' episode in 'Huckleberry Finn'. Two of the stories, 'Bruschetta on the Beach' and 'Daddy's Little Clown', are masterpieces on a par with the best of Somerset Maugham or Katherine Mansfield." Ortleb's bold, uncompromising novella, "The Closing Argument" is the "Uncle Tom's Cabin" of the AIDS and chronic fatigue syndrome epidemics. "The Closing Argument" is a courtroom novella about an African-American man who is tried in Connecticut for the crime of infecting a woman with HIV, the virus that the American government has declared the official cause of AIDS. His lawyer brilliantly turns the tables on the government scientists. Nicholas Regush called the book "Eye-popping reading if you dare to expand your scope of thinking about AIDS and justice."