In this poignant memoir, the author interweaves two fascinating stories: his own upbringing as the youngest of nine children of a Kentucky whiskey maker and that of his lover Larry Rose, the only child of German Jews, survivors of the Holocaust. With grace and affectionate humor, he follows their relationship from their first meeting through Larry's death.

"I'm so lucky, " his lover told him repeatedly, even as he was confronting HIV.

"Denial, pure and simple, " Johnson told himself, "until our third and final trip to Paris, where on our last night in the city we sat together in the courtyard of the Picasso Museum. There I turned to him and said 'I'm so lucky, ' and it was as if the time allotted to him to teach me this lesson, the time allotted to me to learn it had been consumed, and there was nothing left but the facts of things to play out."