A review by kirsten0929
The Gifts of the Body by Rebecca Brown

4.0

[1994] Notes to self…Designated as fiction but the author was a home-care worker and I couldn’t help reading it as a memoir. Our (unnamed, as far as I remember, which also helped me think of her as Rebecca) narrator is a home-care worker who works for an agency that takes care of people with AIDS. More accurately, people who are actively dying of AIDS. Used clear, simple, unadorned style to pack a powerful emotional punch. She shows us how she cares, in speech and in actions, about people she has newly met and in very difficult circumstances, and we care, too. Could I do that job? Could I go to work knowing my heart would break a little more each day? I like to think I could, but I honestly don’t know. Read at first like short stories, but the characters recur and a complete story emerges.