The AIDS Crisis of the 1980s
The main theme of the novel is the AIDS crisis of the 1980s when the epidemic was taking hold of and apparently decimating the gay community. Because it seemed to come out of nowhere it was even more shocking and lives seemed to be lost in enormous number. The book also shows that it was considered to be largely a "gay problem" rather than a societal one at this time. This is also true when Fiona considers her own feelings of loss that were never really addressed at all because she is a straight woman, not a gay man, and therefore thought to be "unaffected" by the epidemic. The novel also shows that becoming HIV positive in the 1980s was almost a guarantee of developing AIDS, again, hugely different to the status of the virus today.
Friendship
Another of the main themes in the novel is that of friendship. Fiona gives much of her life to her friends and even sacrifices her family relationships to take care of them. She and Richard maintain their friendship for over thirty years as she stays with him when she visits Paris in search of her daughter. She knows that she sacrificed a great deal but she doesn't regret doing so. Richard demonstrates his friendship by his photographic tributes to those he has lost. His apartment is adorned with photographs of those who died in the AIDS epidemic and he feels comforted by this constant reminder of them.
The novel also indicates the importance of "framily" - in other words, friends with whom you are so close that they become your family. Yale is closer with his friends than his family and they become his family of choice; Fiona, loyal to her brother also in some ways neglects her own family for the family of friends she has chosen.
