I remember everything by Fiona Wilkes

Fiona Wilkes has created a glorious homage to the joy and exhilaration, and most especially the love, shared between a group of queer friends in early 1980s London. They lived their lives laughing, dreaming, and partying in pubs and a shared house open to a diverse range of characters.

The two childhood friends Billie and Laura escape their stiflingly conservative homes in Suffolk, fleeing firstly to university life in Bristol and then to London. Free-spirited Laura has already come out as a lesbian teenager, whilst Billie’s love for Laura is camouflaged as ‘best friends’. They build a ‘found family’ of gay, queer and trans personalities.

And then ‘It’, the insidious AIDS epidemic creeps in. Part Two ‘the worst of times’ is the longest section of the book, and details the gradual succumbing to sickness; and the fear, condemnation and shunning by wider society. Billie cares for all of her friends through their disease then death. It is a terrible time, torturous and profoundly sad, but still infused with love and caring.

The novel reads like a memoir, but surprisingly is a work of historical fiction in which Wilkes has been able to draw on her own experiences of love and friendships in the LGBTQIA+ community, as well as her research of the AIDS crisis. She includes snippets of Billie’s present day life, revealing her to now have a wife and son. Billie’s memories reveal the devastating trauma of AIDS, but they also revel in the happy times. As she says, ‘I remember everything’, the little shared memories, the laughter, the love and the freedom. This is the overwhelming feeling the reader comes away with, just how deep and caring the friendships were, and the love that carries through to the end. Shortlisted for the 2024 Hungerford Award, 'I remember everything' is a very moving, really lovely story.

Themes: LGBTQIA+, Love, Identity, AIDS, Memories, Loss.

Helen Eddy