Rock Hudson's death gave the Western world insight into AIDS, or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, when he "riveted America's attention upon this deadly new threat for the first time, and his diagnosis became a demarcation that would separate the history of America before AIDS from the history that came after" (xxi). However, by the time people were aware of the AIDS epidemic, many lives had been lost, and on the day of Hudson's death, "some 12,000 Americans were already dead or dying of AIDS and hundreds of thousands more were infected with the virus that caused the disease" (xxi-xxii).

Victims, especially those from the gay communities, were affected by the perception that AIDS was a “homosexual affliction” (xxii). This resulted in a lack of funding, awareness, concern, and action on behalf of the Reagan Administration, political leaders, public health officials, and scientists, with none more disappointing than the media: “Without the media to fulfill its role as public guardian, everyone else was left to deal—and not deal—with AIDS as they saw fit” (xxiii). Those few that chose to fight and persist became the heroes of “a tale of courage as well as cowardice, compassion as well as bigotry, inspiration as well as venality, and redemption as well as despair,” one narrated “so that it will never happen again, to any people, anywhere” (xxiii).