“The Fight of Our Lives” – A Book by David Levithan and Gabriel Duckels About the HIV Crisis in the US
The history of the epidemic told through archives, interviews, and poems: how state indifference spawned radical activism.
In April 2026, Knopf published the book “The Fight of Our Lives: AIDS in America.” American writer David Levithan and British researcher Gabriel Duckels have compiled a journalistic history of the HIV epidemic in the United States. The book is addressed to the general public and teenagers. The authors show how the government’s indifference in the 1980s and 1990s forced the LGBT community to fight independently for treatment and survival.
In their research, the authors move away from dry chronology, combining archival documents, interviews, news reports, poems, and obituaries. Through these testimonies, Levithan and Duckels tell the stories of specific individuals: actor Rock Hudson, teenager Ryan White, basketball player Magic Johnson, and Cuban-American activist Pedro Zamora.
The professional community has received the book with approval. Publishers Weekly magazine called it an “emotionally resonant portrait” and a “comprehensive work on pain, loss, and hard-won hope.” Kirkus Reviews noted that the authors “balance rigorous research with accessibility for teen readers.” According to the magazine, the book “honors the dead and inspires the living.” School Library Journal emphasized that it is an “important historical document that should be in every library.”
