sentences:  In the book's opening pages, Michael Tolliver is middle aged and still alive in living HIV-positive for over 20 years now in the year 2006.Michael encounters a half-remembered old flame, prompting him to reflect on his status as a survivor of both the HIV epidemic (which killed many of his peers in the 1980s and 1990s but is now a more treatable chronic illness thanks in part to better medication) and of a San Francisco that has transformed due in large part to the dot com boom.Characters from the original series include Anna Madrigal, the one-time landlady of 28 Barbary Lane; Brian Hawkins and his now-adult daughter Shawna, a pansexual aspiring writer; and Brian's ex-wife Mary Ann Singleton.