Published in 1988, Bienvenue dans le monde du Sida! (Welcome to the World of AIDS!) claims that it is an ‘histoire vécue’ (‘a real life/true story’). The back cover tells us that a woman called Mona sleeps with men after meeting them in nightclubs. In the morning, she leaves a message with her red lipstick on the bathroom mirror, always the same one. One cannot help but draw the conclusion that the message is the actual title of the book, especially since a red lipstick lies below the handwritten title on the front cover. The blurb then introduces Mike Winer, a 23-year-old investigative journalist for a Los Angeles newspaper. He is engaged and his fiancée is expecting their child. One night he meets his fate in a hotel room. The text then reads: ‘Il ne sait pas encore qu'il est mort. Mort pour quelques minutes de jouissance.’ (‘He does not know yet that he is dead. Dead for a few minutes of pleasure.’)

I will start by summing up the story. The book has a first-person narrator identifying himself as the author, Mike Winer. In Chapter 1, the narrator tells us that, while still a trainee journalist, he is put in charge of an investigation concerning drugs and prostitution. This section ends with a reflection that foresees the dangers to come; we realise that this is a flashback narrative. There are very seldom any dates in this narrative, nor a strict chronology. It is therefore difficult to situate events, except for the year, 1986. In Chapter 3, the narrator has unprotected sex with Mona Hessler, and as readers we have in mind the plot announced on the back cover, though the narrator is unaware of his fate, especially since Mona does not leave a message on the bathroom mirror. Winer learns that Karine Wooley, his fiancée, is pregnant, having stopped taking the pill without telling him. For the purpose of his investigation, Winer meets Bert Coffman, an HIV-positive man. The latter describes the woman who gave him the virus, and says that before leaving the next morning she wrote ‘Welcome to the World of AIDS!’ on the bathroom mirror. Again, the reader is aware that her description matches that of the woman Winer has just had unprotected sex with, but Winer seems oblivious to this.