Sensing Light

“A moving tapestry of the doctors, the patients, and their lovers, both gay and straight, caught up in the AIDS epidemic . . . compassionate, intelligent.” —Bill Barich, author of Long Way Home

This breakout book by Mark A. Jacobson, a leading Bay Area HIV/AIDS physician, follows three people from vastly different backgrounds, who are thrown together by a shared urgency to find out what is killing so many men in the prime of their lives. Kevin, a gay medical resident from working class Boston, has moved to San Francisco in search of acceptance of his sexual identity. Herb, a middle-aged supervising physician at one of the nation’s toughest hospitals, struggles with his own emotional rigidity. And Gwen, a divorced mother raising a teen daughter, is seeking a sense of self and security while endeavoring to complete her medical training. Mark A. Jacobson, a professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco and attending physician at San Francisco General Hospital, began his internship in 1981, just days after the CDC first reported a mysterious, fatal disease affecting gay men.

“A moving story of doctors navigating the intersections of suffering, ambition and discovery.” —Krista Bremer, author of A Tender Struggle



“Jacobson’s novel weaves the story of three medical professionals whose lives are personally changed by the impact of the epidemic . . . Without doubt, Dr. Jacobson is dispensing good medicine to his readers.” —New York Journal of Books

“This riveting drama poignantly captures the raw emotions at the intersection of patients, health professionals, and a society unprepared for a new epidemic.” —Diane Havlir, MD, Chief, UCSF Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases and Global Medicine at San Francisco General Hospital