The Gifts of the Body the patients and the caregiver. The book contains ten short stories, the titles of each being associated with "gifts" which are various functions of the body, both physical and emotional: sweat, wholeness, tears, skin, hunger, mobility, death, speech, sight, hope, and mourning. The caregiver experiences each "gift", as he/she deals with patients who have AIDS, showing the different shared relationships in each case. Each patient is a distinct case, differing in terms of age, financial situation, attitude toward the illness etc., showing the reader that this disease affects all types of people. The book is written in the "no-frills style"
Julian Ritter in which the surreal element is dominant. The portraits are traditional and the most genuine. The drawings become very 'slick.' The large canvases, on the other hand, tend to be too personal and too involved in allegory to hold as significant statements. In 1964, Hilde had been sick for a year but refused to see a doctor. When she collapsed, Ritter insisted and doctors discovered she had cancer. She had a mastectomy and struggled for two years before succumbing to the disease. Hilde died January 22, 1966. Ritter began drinking heavily. He later said, "I became a lousy cowardly drunk