The After-Death Room: Journey Into Spiritual Activism [Paperback]

Michael McColly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 2006

At the 13th International AIDS conference in Durban, Michael McColly, a journalist and yoga teacher living with AIDS, found himself confronted with the deeper issues and ethical dimensions of the epidemic. Seeing firsthand the destruction the disease was inflicting on South Africa and hearing the stories of activists from China to Nairobi challenged McColly to place his own problems within a global framework, forcing him to contemplate the lives of HIV positive people without access to treatment, health care, and a supportive community. Through interviews with Buddhist monks in a remote Thai monastery, male sex workers in India, African-American preachers in Chicago, and Senegalese mullahs, McColly comes to a fuller understanding of how cultural attitudes toward death and dying, sexuality and gender, and morality and spirituality affect the life chances of people living with HIV/AIDS. Part spiritual journey, part political transformation, Parables of the Body humanizes the often faceless struggles of people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide and at home.

Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: Soft Skull Press, Transition Books; 1 edition (October 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932360921
• ISBN-13: 978-1932360929
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,905,824 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intense, compassionate, enlightening, inspiring, May 23, 2007

By 

J. Tierney "Jessie Tierney" (Chicago, IL, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The After-Death Room: Journey Into Spiritual Activism (Paperback)

HIV-positive journalist Michael McColly travels through South Africa, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Chicago, and Senegal to document the lives of activists, sex workers, and people living with the AIDS. He also tells his own story, humanizing the disease and making it accessible in an intimate and compassionate way.

McColly's careful crafting blends scene and internal observations in a way that moves the vantage point from a feeling in the body to the exterior world, then out to a global perspective, taking the reader with him. Imagery and perception combine to make this not only an important sociological study of multiple struggles (sexuality, AIDS, poverty, healing), but also a literary work. He incorporates facts so that they become a part of the story without losing momentum, allowing the reader to step away from this book with a greater understanding of the scope of the AIDS pandemic.

Posing poignant and at times painful questions throughout his memoir, McColly challenges the reader to confront complex issues.

The book is both disheartening and inspiring as McColly's journey deepens. In Chennai, India, he interviews a man heading AIDS education for sex workers who says, "We are trying to make the young men ... into a cohesive, self-sustaining community. It's the only way they are going to survive not only this disease but this life." This becomes a subtle theme through the book: those who become active in helping others find that reaching out gives them a way to cope with the disease. At times, the story is devastating. Multiple viewpoints and approaches toward the treatment of AIDS help to put the struggles of various countries into a very real perspective.

The After-Death Room is a modern portrait of the diverse spectrum of the AIDS landscape. But the ultimate message does not just apply to AIDS. It is universal: the importance of connecting, understanding, loving, and helping others--which, in this world, is harder than ever to realize, is certainly a thing worth living for.

[...]

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well written, deeply felt , activist memoir, December 2, 2007

By 

Midwest Reader - See all my reviews

This review is from: The After-Death Room: Journey Into Spiritual Activism (Paperback)

McColly's writing is elegant and urgent. I rarely find books that combine political relevance and artistry as deeply as this book does. I couldn't put it down.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars light in a dark place, July 26, 2009

By 

Tamara Jaffe-Notier (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The After-Death Room: Journey Into Spiritual Activism (Paperback)

McColly's 2006 memoir of his personal fact-finding mission about the worldwide AIDS epidemic remains inspiring, enlightening, and eminently readable. It's a book about the practice of journalism--a lesson in how to tell the truth.