As If Death Summoned explores the early days of the AIDS epidemic and is based on Alan’s experiences working with Cascade AIDS Project in Portland, Oregon (1993-99,) and as a volunteer with the Victorian AIDS Council in Melbourne, Australia, before that.
In 1936, a man was caught in a blizzard on the Bogong High Plains of Australia. Found unconscious by a search party, he was taken to the nearest township where an old aborigine woman made the cryptic comment, “They brought back only his body.” He died soon after. In the decades since, there have been reports of a lone figure seen wandering over the heathlands. When approached, the man vanishes and no trace of him can be found. Almost sixty years later, a young American returns from Australia, haunted by dreams of the Bogong High Plains. After ten years of being on the front lines of the AIDS epidemic there, he, too, is lost in a kind of blizzard that has already claimed thirty-one friends—the thirty-first being his lover. Now burnt out and exhausted, he’s often mistaken for one of the infected but no longer bothers correcting people. Let them think what they will, he tells himself. I’m not dying. I’m already dead. Struggling to recall a time when life was about more than death, he nonetheless plunges back into the heart of the epidemic, working with an AIDS organization in Portland, Oregon, where he will eventually come to understand his mystic connection to the Bogong High Plains and the significance of the old woman’s words: When he returned to the States, he brought back only his body.
“As if Death Summoned is set in Portland during the AIDS epidemic of the 1990s. The historical event known as the Mt. Bogong Tragedy is the seed for this fictional story about profound loss. With expected pathos and unexpected humor, it testifies to the power of grief to erode a life, and—for those who can find a way through their grief—the power to rebuild and renew it.” —Alan Rose
To learn more about Alan, please visit his website.
