Surprisingly heartbreaking, even if the tone is detached and the familial drama is contrasted to the bigger struggle to get a grip on the AIDS epidemic in the face of stigma, denial and silence
Social as well as physical death

Sleeping Children by debut writer Anthony Passeron focuses on the AIDS crisis in 80s France. Breaking the silence in a small village working class family near Nice, where a butcher father never speaks about his deceased brother.
Through 60 short chapters we get to know the trajectory of the uncle of the author and the struggle by scientists to get a handle on the disease spreading and on how to stop the dying of young patients.
What is very clear is that the fact that the disease most impacted sectors of the population considered marginal formed a major factor in the deadliness and the lack of initial response by authorities, in the book most symbolised by the unwillingness of the prestigious Institute Pasteur to engage in combatting the AIDS epidemic.

I initially found the personal history of the family of the author, which focuses on a concurrent (and similarly “hush-hush”) drugs epidemic in rural Southern France, much less engaging than the clinical discovery in respect to the AIDS epidemic. The detached way of narration, almost faux journalistic, reminds me of both Annie Ernaux and Éric Vuillard, but works less well with the personal segments in my opinion.

The stories in the egos and arrogance, and rivalry between the US and French scientific community, inhibiting accurate identification of the virus then again lead to infuriating reading. Laboratories refused to analyse blood, stating that they do not work for queers or junkies.
Lack of beds leading patients with 40 degree fever being turned away.
Corpses not washed and dressed but buried in lead lined coffins.
Petitions to remove seropositive children from school.
And combination therapy drugs being initially so scarce that patients are to be entered into a lottery according to the national AIDS council of France.

Devastatingly emotional these stories of young death and crippling abandonment due to stigma and fear, and impacting celebrities like Michael Foucault and Rock Hudson, who was not accepted on any commercial airline on a return flight from France to the US when his diagnosis became public.

The last, short section of the novel, that details the impact across generations, is devastating. I don't cry or feel overly emotional due to reading often, but this short account cuts deeps, is impressive and deserves a wide reader audience.

Originally published in French, Passeron’s debut autofiction traces two stories with overlapping timelines that run through both parts of his book. The first story retells the historical facts of an unknown illness that a small group of scientists study. Due to the stigma surrounding the “‘at-risk’ groups” including individuals identified as “homosexuals, heroin addicts[,] and haemophiliacs,” with “[a] high proportion of [Haitian] victims,” other scientists and the public hesitate to embrace the progression of the scientific research. Moreover, the prominent French scientists, Luc Montagnier, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, and associates (Willy Rozenbaum, Jacques Leibowitch, Jean-Claude Chermann, et al.), navigate political dynamics with American researchers as these two main groups run lab tests on trial patients and publish journal articles. Their trials’ three-fold criteria observes “clinical progression of the disease, mortality rates[,] and changes in T4 cells.”

In the second story, Passeron searches for his family’s secrets as they relate to the AIDS epidemic and heroin use. Set in the Nice countryside, Passeron’s paternal uncle, Désiré, becomes addicted to heroin during his trip to Amsterdam and contracts what we would come to know as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and AIDS. Passed through the use of unclean needles, the family’s pride and joy—the educated eldest son—dies of a pulmonary embolism in 1987 at the age of 30. Passeron does not provide the specifics of Désiré's wife Brigitte’s life and health, but we learn that she also dies from AIDS. Their mothers labor together to raise their granddaughter, Émilie, who contracts HIV from Brigitte, either in utero or during her birth in 1984.

In 1996, protease inhibitor drugs are made available for patients with HIV, but the virologists’ breakthrough had not come soon enough. In November, Émilie died from AIDS before the dormant virus “reached its absurd conclusion,” destroying her body and poisoning her simple family’s dreams. Sleeping Children pays homage to the unconscious children who were high on heroin in the streets during broad daylight in the early 1980s. I would definitely consider incorporating this book into my curriculum if I were teaching a middle school class on the AIDS epidemic. The story of Passeron’s stolid family’s internal fissures and external dynamics within their town, running a butcher shop in France, oscillates well with the historical facts behind the scientific community. In other words, it makes sense to intertwine the research history with a personal story set in France because of the French’s early and monumental involvement with the ongoing search for a cure for AIDS.

Sleeping Children reads factually—it is informative and not as emotionally engaging as I expected, even in the sections about the Passeron family. Passeron highlights how people respond differently to the curious illness, such as the religious link to sin and morality and preventative measures like condoms, which JP2 opposed. I vividly remember learning about HIV/AIDS in grade 8, and this novel would have been an accessible and lucid resource to be introduced to the facts surrounding the disease. Frank Wynne translated Sleeping Children to English.

My thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for an ARC. I also shared this review on GoodReads on April 28, 2025 (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7519251020).

Sleeping Children covers two stories alternatively. The first is the non-fiction history of HIV and AIDS. It tells the history from the first known cases that alerted medical scientists, to all the research and experimentation involved in figuring out the how and why, to the treatments and trials. The second story is an incredibly believable fictionalized tale about a French family and their personal history with AIDS.

In the fiction story, the POV 'author' tells of his uncle, a man addicted to heroin. His family try many times to help him through his addiction, but he is too far into his sickness and with this addiction, he and his girlfriend contract HIV, and when his girlfriend gets pregnant with their child, the family wait to see if the unborn child will also be sick.

The non fiction was fascinating to read, and the fiction was so believable I had to double check to make sure it wasn't a true account of the author's real family. I was attached to these characters and their lives, waiting to see if things would improve for them. It was a great read and I will be purchasing a copy when I can.

Wow ! Just wow! Passeron weaves together a family memoir and a chronicle of the early AIDS crisis—moving between the silence surrounding his uncle’s diagnosis and the medical world’s search for answers.

As a queer man, I found it deeply moving to read about those who looked beyond the stigma and dedicated their time to finding a cure. A raw, necessary look at the impact of the AIDS crisis—the people that were silent, and those who refused to give up in the face of it.

Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the e-ARC via NetGalley. These opinions are my own.

"For researchers, the looming threat is ever
more apparent: the possibility of a pandemic"

SLEEPING CHILDREN by Anthony Passeron tells the history of AIDS and the story of a family in souther France whose lives got ploughed over by the pandemic. In 1981, the first wave of AIDS hit the USA and later, France. The French scientists saw an uncanny similarity between the two, something peculiar, something that's gonna connect a lot of dots in the history of diseases.

Considered as 'Gay Syndrome' in the early times, spread in the close circle of homosexuals, drug addicts and haemophiliacs, this books tells the intricate history of the identification, isolation and analysis of the Human Immuno Deficiency Virus and its attributions in the lives of humans, families and the social stigma attached to it. Alternating chapters, one telling the common life of the author's family getting intertwined with the syndrome and the other, telling the scitific exploration of the syndrome, this book gave me everything that I needed to know about AIDS. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and it gave me a lot of valuable informations. As someone who's majoring in life sciences, this was half of a textbook and half of a gripping novel to me.

The author's family story made me realize how far and painstakingly long family members would go to save the life of one of them, embrace them even when they are hurting and stay with them until the very end.

I hope Émilie finally got to see what peace is, that her fragile soul finally felt the scent of Normality, that she never had to suffer from the curse her parents left her with.

That she's shining brighter than any stars.

Thank you FSG and NG for the Advance Reader Copy!!

Thank you to Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, and Anthony Passeron for allowing me to read this gutwrenching and important before its publication date in exchange for an honest review.

I genuinely think this might be the best book I have read this year. I found myself needing to read faster and faster. I finished this book in two sittings, I just could not put it down. It moved me in a way that is currently unspeakable.

As a queer man, I have a level of familiarity with the AIDS crisis and its impact on my community, the reason why many queer people became queer elders. However, Sleeping Children takes an intense and personal dive into the author's family's experience with AIDS after his uncle was diagnosed due to his heroin addiction.

The book narratively follows two stories, the author's family's experience with AIDS and several French scientists as they try and uncover what is causing the epidemic. I would highly recommend it to anyone who loves any form of nonfiction, this book is for lovers of biographies and scientific history.

Told in chapters alternating between the French doctors trying to find a cure for AIDS and the modern day as the narrator attempts to explore his own family’s history, Sleeping Children attempts to paint a picture of the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in a rural French town and its impact on a family. This book is really hard to review, in particular because it is seemingly a fictionalization of the author’s own family history, and that personal aspect does come through at times. But the tonal shift between the doctors’ and Passeron narrating his family’s history is incredibly jarring and I found it ineffective. The chapters that followed the doctors read more as a history book, a relatively well-done, if brief, history book, but a history book, nonetheless. The other chapters are narrated from the current time but detail the author’s uncle’s struggles with addiction and subsequently his contraction of AIDS. I was somewhat curious to read a book following the AIDS epidemic, where the focus is on its impact on addicts and also on people who aren’t American, but the entire book just feels very surface level. It really needed to be longer to properly explore any of the themes present, or to choose to focus on either the doctors or the family. The narrative style makes it feel incredibly detached from the characters and so you also feel detached from what they’re going through and unfortunately, I just don’t think it’s a book that will stick with me at all.

I absolutely adore Anthony Passeron’s prose. Sleeping Children is a compelling blend of family biography and an essay on the early days of the AIDS epidemic, with a strong focus on the social isolation of the first patients and the challenges of early research. It explores themes of shame, stigma, rejection, and silence in a way that is both touching and deeply unsettling.

If you appreciate the work of Annie Ernaux, this might be right up your alley. The small-town atmosphere and the informational sections are particularly strong and memorable. My only wish is that the portrait of the author’s uncle, Désiré, had been more vivid—I remember his life story but not quite the person behind it.

Still, this is a powerful and contemplative read, and I highly recommend it.

4.25⭐️

[a copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher from netgalley. thank you!]

a challenging and powerful novel about the AIDS epidemic. well worth a read

Anthony Passeron tells the story of his uncle Désiré, who died young, a few years before Anthony was born in the early 1980s.

There is a clear taboo around uncle Désiré death:

"My father and grandfather never mentioned him. My mother always cut short her explanations, and always with the same words: ‘It was all terribly sad, really.’ As for my grandmother, she dodged every question with mindless euphemisms, with stories of the dead people going to heaven and watching over the living here below."

What follows is a dramatic story of growing up in a small and boring French village in the 1960s and 70s, where Désiré started using marihuana and later heroine.

In parallel chapters Passeron gives a factual overview of the discovery and spread of the AIDS virus, focusing on the rival medical teams and researchers in the US and France trying to isolate the virus and then find a cure.

Passeron makes the timelines of the family history and the medical history coincide, so we follow the rise of the virus with the decline of Désiré.

I found it very convincing and tragic at times, especially towards the end.

The style is simple and straightforward as usual with French autofiction.

Highly recommended.

Anthony Passeron’s Sleeping Children is an absolutely phenomenal book that details the AIDS crisis from its emergence in the early 1980’s to its presence in the 21st century. The story of this tragedy is told in two dual narratives- that of a family in rural France devastated by the disease, and that of the teams of scientists, researchers and virologists who worked to identify and treat the disease, creating a compelling portrait of the personal and wide-spread effects of AIDS.

The chapters are short, moving and beautifully written. Frank Wynne has done an excellent job translating. The historical and medical sections of the book are incredibly well researched, and provide an engaging, in-depth look at the history of AIDS in the research sector, and of the people and institutes, failures and successes, and tensions and collaborations involved to bring our understanding of HIV and AIDS to where it is now.

This profound novel is already one of my favourite reads of the year, and I will be highly recommending this book.

Thank you so much to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley. I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book’s format. The dual storylines, one focusing on the medical aspects of the AIDS epidemic and the other on the personal journey of the main characters, made it an intriguing read. While I found the medical section a bit too scientific, the overall balance was well-crafted. The story of the main characters and their daughter was particularly heartbreaking. It was a quick read that I highly recommend!

Thank you FSG for the advance copy of this novel. Sleeping Children is, at its core, a novel about a tragic French family who became entangled with AIDS before it even had a name, before the virus that causes it was ever identified. The second son of a working-class family narrates this story of his older brother, Desiré, deemed a brilliant over-achiever by the family, succumbs to heroine addiction in the early 80s. With that addiction, of course, came the AIDS-causing virus, which had not even been identified. The story of this family alternates chapters with the general history of the AIDS pandemic and the heroic researchers who devoted their lives and careers to identifying a virus that, to their minds, only impacted gays and junkies. It wasn't until the number of people infected by tainted blood from a transfusion rose that the world took notice. This could have been very dry, but I was fascinated from start to finish. Read this book, if only to give the OG scientists their overdue respect.

This was unexpected in many ways, and many of those ways would be a spoiler here so you'll have to trust me! Although I didn't love it to begin with, I ended up really enjoying the way that the novel moves between the personal narrative and the historical record. Each chapter is either about the French family in a small village near Nice or about the global attempts to understand and halt the transmission of HIV and then find a treatment for AIDS. A deeply moving book, that I'd thoroughly recommend.

I can appreciate the idea behind this book; to be part historical fiction, part biographical fiction. However, I felt it came across as more of a history book. I really enjoy books about the AIDS epidemic as this is a special interest of mine, but I think I would have rather this actually been a history book. It felt like it was trying to be too many things at once. All the best to the author!

What an insightful, compassionate, and heartbreaking read. This book concurrently follows the work of French medical researchers to understand and identify HIV/AIDS and the experience of a family affected by AIDS. While it is marketed as a novel, I would more so say it alternates between being a nonfiction book and a personal narrative. Once I understood this, I was better able to engage with the sections following French researchers. As I continued to read, I found that I quite liked the juxtaposition between the emotional personal story and the factual history of the scientific discovery. I appreciated the author’s discussion of the politics of the scientific community and the way that this affected and hampered HIV/AIDS research. Can’t overstate that enough.

The author’s grandmother was a very interesting character in this piece—she was presented as flawed, but the depiction felt so real, resonant, and precisely captured a type of person that cannot face up to their reality. The personal narrative gave a personal grounding to patients and the urgency the researchers faced.

The writing/translation in the later chapters was lovely. This book was serious and sad without being melodramatic. As someone born in the early 90s, I never realized how very close this epidemic was to time in which I lived. It can feel as if it is part of a distant past, but it is far from that. So glad I read this.

Alternating between one family’s private history and the global drama of the AIDS epidemic, Sleeping Children will urge you to confront both the chilling impact of government and pharmaceutical bureaucracy on each person touched by the virus, and the enormity of the unknowable personal tragedies underlying the statistics about AIDS. Passeron’s family lives in a state of bitter denial about their loved one’s drug use and grim diagnosis, that is echoed by the delayed response of institutions that may have the key to ending a horrific epidemic. Punctuated by Anthony Passeron’s unanswered questions about the life of his late Uncle Désiré, this visceral and thoughtfully researched work of narrative nonfiction is the impressive product of a man’s quest to uncover the truth about a tragedy that had been swept under the rug.

Thanks NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the digital ARC!