The Lost Paradise

A chronicle of a decades-long volatile romance between two men — from their first meeting during the height of the 1950s Lavender Scare to the AIDS crises of the 1980s.

God has abandoned Heaven. It's 1985: the Reagans are in the White House and Death swings the scythe of AIDS. In Manhattan, Prior Walter tells Louis, his lover of four years, he's ill; Louis leaves but as disease and loneliness ravage Prior, guilt invades Louis. Joe Pitt, a Mormon Republican attorney, is pushed by right-wing fixer Roy Cohn toward a job at the Justice Department. Pitt and Cohn are closeted: Pitt, out of shame and religious turmoil; Cohn, to preserve his power and access. Pitt's wife Harper is strung out on Valium, aching to escape a sexless marriage. An angel invites Prior to be a prophet in death.

Based on the Sweden novelist Jonas Gardell's novel Love, the story of the struggle the homosexual community had with AIDS, during which time a lot of people who were lovers and family members died. The story is also about family and society's refusing to accept the gay community during that time.

A chronicle of five friends during a decade in which everything changed, including the rise of AIDS.