<DIV>In December 1995, the FDA approved the release of protease inhibitors, the first effective treatment for AIDS. For countless people, the drug offered a reprieve from what had been a death sentence; for others, it was too late. In the United States alone, over 318,000 people had already died from AIDS-related complications?among them the singer Michael Callen and the poet Essex Hemphill.<BR><BR>Meticulously researched and evocatively told, <I>Hold Tight Gently</I> is the celebrated historian Martin Duberman’s poignant memorial to those lost to AIDS and to two of the great unsung heroes of the early years of the epidemic.<BR>Callen, a white gay Midwesterner who had moved to New York, became a leading figure in the movement to increase awareness of AIDS in the face of willful and homophobic denial under the Reagan administration; Hemphill, an African American gay man, contributed to the black gay and lesbian scene in Washington, D.C., with poetry of searing intensity and introspection.<BR><BR>A profound exploration of the intersection of race, sexuality, class, identity, and the politics of AIDS activism beyond ACT UP, <I>Hold Tight Gently</I> captures both a generation struggling to cope with the deadly disease and the extraordinary refusal of two men to give in to despair.</DIV>