This memoir begins in 1990 when sixteen-year-old activist Keiko Lane joins the Los Angeles chapters of Queer Nation and ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). She becomes close friends with older queers who help her develop a nuanced understanding of her multiracial Okinawan queer identity and the connection between antiqueer violence, sexism, racism, and police brutality. She begins a complicated, secret sexual relationship with HIV positive artist Cory Roberts Auli. After he is brutally beaten by the Los Angeles Police Department, Keiko is exposed to his blood while tending to his injuries. She meditates on what it means to be at risk for HIV and struggles with the grief of loving people who are approaching death. Cory asks her if she is willing to help him end his life. She also develops a relationship with ACT UP/Los Angeles member and novelist Steven Corbin, who encourages her to write about her experiences. Despite her resistance to leaving, her family and friends convince her to go away to college in Oregon. During her first semester, she is sexually assaulted. She travels between college and Los Angeles as friends die. Keiko struggles with trauma and injuries in the aftermath of the assault, while undertaking a comparative study of the poetry of wartime and atrocity, and the literature and performance art of AIDS. The memoir follows her into the present as she meets and marries her wife, and they reconnect with, and recommit to, the remaining chosen family of ACT UP and Queer Nation.
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