Epitaphs for the Living: Words and Images in the Time of AIDS
Billy Howard
 Each page of the book can be viewed as an independent illness narrative. Howard, in letting his subjects speak for themselves, transcribes their stories in an intensely personal way. The photographs depict patients in their own surroundings, each one a visual narrative of the sick person's daily life. They use their own faces and bodies to convey the turmoil that lies within. Using photography as its principle medium, the book attempts to tell the story of AIDS from the patients' points of view. The introduction, by Lonnie D. Kliever, points out that many of the personal messages written by the portrait subjects indicate where they are on the journey toward accepting their mortality. Many other messages highlight illness as the main focus rather than impending death. A consensus among the patients is that dying from AIDS is bad, but living with AIDS is worse. Whether they last a few words or a long letter, each message represents that patient's personal story.