All the Young Men – Ruth Coker Burks with Kevin Carr O’Leary
In late 2019, I read the phenomenal hidden gem “The Gifts of the Body,” by Rebecca Brown, a fictionized account of her time as an AIDS caregiver in New York City in the late-1980s and early 1990s. It was as simply written, yet raw and unfiltered account of helping people find comfort in death.
That novel led me down a rabbit hole of research on the early days of AIDS and the political, social and medical debates that made an already difficult situation a full-fledged tragedy. Then I stumbled upon a 2015 Arkansas Times article about the “cemetery angel,” which introduced me to Ruth Coker Burks.
In modern gay history, a lot of attention is (rightfully) paid to the individuals that demanded action on AIDS, but we haven’t heard much about the everyday warriors — the caregivers, like Burks — who were often not family members or trained medical professionals but that stepped up to help people live and die with dignity when they were shunned by so many.
It’s 1986 in Hot Springs, Ark., and Burks is visiting a friend in the hospital when she notices food trays stacked outside a hospital room. After inquiring at the nurse’s station, she learns the patient, Jimmy, has AIDS and all the medical professionals refuse to enter the room.
Not only does she go in, she stays with Jimmy as he dies, arranges for his cremation, and buries his ashes in her family cemetery on top of her father’s grave. It’s a Hollywood-ready superhero origin story like no other.
Soon, word gets around about what Burks did, and she’s contacted by more facilities around Arkansas to “deal with” the growing census of AIDS patients, as well as individuals turned out by family and friends with nowhere else to go.
For, literally, stumbling into this calling, Burks quickly adjusts to her role as social worker, nurse and therapist for these men and women, some coming to her with only days left to live.
Of course, her compassion comes at a personal cost. She lost friends, jobs and standing within the community, but her wit, Southern charm and general bad-assery kept her going — building relationships and bridges that were needed.
This wasn’t her full-time job either. She often cared for people after working, bringing along her elementary school-aged daughter, and running to hospitals in the middle of the night as a person was close to death.
She dove in dumpsters for recently discarded food, had a cross burned on her front lawn (twice) and held the hands of countless people — lovingly referred to as “my guys” — as they died, only to be hung up on by their family when calling to share the news.
This could be a book about how to overcome adversity and influence people, but it’s first and foremost a fascinating and heartbreaking micro-history of a time that still looms large over the broader gay community.
Burks, comes across as a resourceful Erin Brockovich-type, a focused outsider who refuses to give up. And while I’m glad to have read her story, it probably would be better on the big screen.
Honestly, I felt I could’ve stopped reading about halfway through. Much of her story is repetitive and focused on details that seem irrelevant to the broader story. Maybe it’s because she’s recounting events that happened almost 40 years ago (and she’s had some health challenges recently), but Kevin Carr O’Leary wasn’t able to elicit the same emotional depth he got out of Jessica Simpson in “Open Book.”
I’m glad to have stuck with it, because the last several chapters were the strongest, as she discusses the loss of several close friends and the looming question of “why.” Something she still can’t answer, even decades later.
The world owes a debt of gratitude to Burks, and her name deserves to be known. While her story is a solid five stars, the delivery here is average.
Rating (story): 3/5 stars
Rating (narration): N/A
Formats: E-book (library loan)
Dates read: January 30 – February 16, 2021
Multi-tasking: N/A
