New title: ‘Don’t Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves’
Jonas Gardell’s Don’t Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves tells the heart-wrenching story of the lovers Benjamin and Rasmus and their group of friends in Stockholm, focusing on the early and mid-80s when the AIDS crisis became fact. The trilogy, a romantic fiction in three parts (1: Love, 2: Disease, 3: Death), chronicles the gay movement in Sweden and the world, holding up a furious mirror to the times lest we forget those who went before us, and the battles they fought for freedom, love, and the right to live.
Don’t Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves: 1. Love
When Rasmus steps off the train in Stockholm in September 1982, he’s leaving stuffy little Koppom behind for good. Young and beautiful, he throws himself into the welcoming arms of the LGBTQ community.
Benjamin is a Jehova’s Witness, knocking on doors to spread God’s word. Nothing can shake his faith. Until the day he rings the doorbell of Paul, the kindest, funniest and bitchiest gay God ever made.
Then on Christmas Eve, as snow covers the city’s rooftops, Rasmus and Benjamin meet. Things are never the same again.
This is a true story: It happened here, in this city, on these streets, among these people. In a city where people continued to live their lives as if nothing had changed, young men began to sicken, to fade, and to die.