Shelby Smoak was infected with HIV while at school but it was a secret his parents kept from him until he was 18. For him, like for many other haemophiliacs in the 1980s, tainted blood had been the cause. , his memoir, takes readers from 1990, when he is informed of the diagnosis, to 1998, when he is forced to return home for parental care after new medication causes kidney stones and he starts urinating blood. Smoak's various physical ailments, including arthritis, are recounted matter of factly, as are his romances with remarkable women who supported and loved him. Smoak writes about having to hide his HIV-positive status from college friends, "muling" drugs from pharmacies to his dormitory room, and suffering "knee bleeds" - jargon for the accumulation of blood in the joints. Damage to other parts of his body, including his ankles and hips, led to the recommendation that he use a cane to help him walk. This book, written with the assistance of Pen America, is neither a plea for help nor a self-help book. It simply tells it like it is, in a way that hits home.