Breach Of Immunity

Molly Hite's novel is EXCELLENT! It's so well written that it reads like a film. I could see it FULLY in my minds eye the first time I read it. Luckily, I was working as an intern at St. Martin's Press back in 1991, so I got to read the unbound galleys of it just BEFORE it was published, which was fortuitous. I ❤️'d the plot because I thought Hite was treading new water in exploring the weaponization of AIDS/HIV against the LGBTQ+ community as social commentary on the treatment of the community by the US Government (and Reagan's mishandling of) the emergence of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980's.

In the Spring of 1994, I was taking a Screenwriting course in the Cinema Studies Department at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst and I wrote a short spec treatment (a few scenes really) script based directly on the novel. I did an in-class staged reading of it, and got an A+ in the class. I was studying Sexual Identity & LGBTQ+ Representation in Theater & Film at Hampshire College and I REALLY wanted to develop the spec script into a full screenplay and film it in the city of Portland, Oregon (where I was moving to for a year of academic leave from the east coast) which would have made a good Hinton I think. I'm surprised actually that it NEVER was optioned for a full-length feature film, because it would have been VERY socially relevant back in the early 90's when LGBTQ+ folks were still actively dying from AIDS, and AZT was still the only ARV widely available for treatment.

This for me was a MUST-READ, and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND Hite's novel to ANYONE.