The reluctance of prominent people to publicly acknowledge their AIDS diagnoses left obituary columns strangely empty of actual flesh-and-blood people who were dying of the syndrome. Only the most knowledgeable of obituary readers could detect the presence of this epidemic in the death notices. A thirty-eight-year-old fashion designer dying of “cancer and pneumonia,” for example, was a sure giveaway, as was the man in his thirties who left no surviving widow after succumbing to a “lingering” or “lengthy” illness.
