The Beat Goes On

In Britain until recently HIV/AIDS has been seen as a ‘gay disease’ despite the fact that worldwide it is predominantly a heterosexual disease. The percentage of gay and bisexual men infected in Britain has recently fallen while the percentage of heterosexual transmissions has been rising and, in particular, amongst the sexually active young. All this to give a context to Minchin’s engagé and most empathic novel which tracks 15-year-old Leyla’s responses to the devastating news that her much loved cousin, 17-year-old Emma, is HIV positive after a one night stand when she did not insist that her sexual partner use a condom.

Minchin, who works as a volunteer for Body and Soul, a support group for, amongst others, young people with HIV/AIDS, has constructed a careful fiction in a rather breathless, teen magazine style which yet contrives well to present much useful and practical information about HIV/AIDS – how to go for a test, what support will be available, the impact on family and relationships, the misconceptions and prejudices and so forth – in a way that teenagers will find riveting. This is a considerable achievement, and it is to cavil, yet given the importance of the topic I cannot avoid doing so, to point out that amongst so much excellently accurate information the throwaway line on page 125 about convincing a boy to ‘wear double condoms’ is a dangerous one: the friction between the two layers of rubber would risk tearing the condom.

While Minchin’s characters have little psychological depth – some are no more than thumbnail sketches – they represent HIV/AIDS issues well. She is particularly good at not being preachy – Leyla is much taken with 18-year-old Darren and, despite knowing the risks, is herself nearly carried away by passionate feelings into having unprotected sex. Teenagers regularly report that their sex education lessons in school are ‘too biological, too little and too late’. This tender, if rather orchestrated account of the tragic repercussions of such inadequate teaching, will stay in the teenage mind.