Publisher's Synopsis
Ren Gallagher has it all. He is a handsome and charismatic gay man with a successful career in public relations. He has also been HIV positive and asymptomatic for over a decade when he notices the first mysterious signs of facial disfigurement, which only progress in the year 2000. He is unaware that many other long time survivors of HIV are also experiencing the same devastating side effect of the much heralded "drug cocktail" medications, a terrifying condition called lipodystrophy. Certain that his worsening disfiguration will lead to social isolation, the loss of his job, and the end of his dream of ever finding true and lasting love, he decides to quietly end his life. However, his friends Audrey and Adam, and Night Cloud, the spirit of a young Native American man who had died of AIDS in the early '80s, were determined to help Ren through his daunting crisis. Night Cloud effectively and sometimes hilariously manages to thwart Ren's efforts to commit suicide, then plans to lead him out of his self-imposed isolation to an obscure and strange private club for gay men called The Oh Aces. Ren is resistant and certain he will only be rejected due to his appearance but Night Cloud is convinced The Oh Aces is the exact oasis he needs if he is to survive. Part One, "The Stranger in the Mirror", draws the reader into Ren's living nightmare.
