Less than two months after their nuptials, Magic called his new bride while on the road. She was pregnant with their first child; he told her they needed to talk. Her mind raced, but it couldn’t prepare her for the truth: Magic was HIV-positive.
Back in 1991, Magic says, HIV was a “death sentence,” but he decided that he wouldn’t hide it; as a straight man, he wanted people to know that AIDS was not a “gay person’s disease.” The Johnsons feared for their unborn baby, endured rumors, shunned paparazzi and lost friends. Still, Cookie took her vows seriously and relied on her faith in God to keep her calm then, and in the days to come…
As memoirs go, “Believing In Magic” is okay. Nor horrid. Not stellar.
The book starts out with a bang and an announcement that no newlywed dreams of hearing. It then reverts to a long, looong story of a relationship that surely took enormous patience to endure, but it’s a tale that could have used a heavier editorial pen and fewer recreated conversations.
Fortunately, it gets better: the winning part of this book is in its latter half. There, Cookie shares a bit about life with an HIV-positive spouse and his ongoing health issues, she writes about learning of their son’s sexuality and accepting their daughter’s search for her birth family.
(“Believing in Magic” by Cookie Johnson with Denene Millner, c.2016, Howard Books, $26/$35 Canada, 272 pages.)
Like us at https://www.facebook.com/pages/New-Pittsburgh-Courier/143866755628836?ref=hl
Follow @NewPghCourier on Twitter https://twitter.com/NewPghCourier
About Post Author
