Word: amanda
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Hoffman draws us into the minds of each of the main characters to show us what each one is like, but the one we get to know the best is Amanda, who daily practices her floor routine to Madonna's "True Blue" and hopes she will never grow above 5'2" so that she can go to the Olympics. We watch her push herself practice after practice, with her upcoming meet as the only object of her attention. But we also watch her throw up after every practice, break out into sweat in her sleep, lose weight and pass...
...WHEN Amanda's fever passes 103 degrees and she is diagnosed as having AIDS, we are hardly surprised. Modern media coverage of the disease has made us more able to recognize AIDS symptoms than those of the chicken pox, and Hoffman's title, At Risk, is less than subtle. But the injustice that an 11 year-old who had a blood transfusion five years earlier, before blood donors were screened for AIDS, could contract this fatal disease hits home, and because we know Amanda so well, we feel as though a close friend is a victim of the disease...
...only do we watch the virus eat away Amanda's life, but we also watch it destroy the lives of her family and her friends. Polly and Ivan begin to argue and then cease to communicate at all, as each parent tries to justify his daughter's death. Charlie retreats into his own thoughts when his best friend's mother refuses to let Servin play with him anymore because she feels her son might catch AIDS from touching Charlie's hand...
Hoffman's portrayal of the town's reaction to Amanda's case of AIDS, however, is the most chilling apsect of the novel. The parent's associaton begins to picket Amanda's school when it learns that she will continue to take classes although she has AIDS...
...Amanda's friends begin to shy away from her, thinking they may get AIDS from using a sink after her. Even Amanda's gymnastics coach gives in at the end. He tells Amanda that she may no longer practice gymnastics because blood from blisters on her hands might infect other team members. His evidence is a vague medical report which he is convinced a parent fabricated, but the fear in the community is too great for reason...