Liz’s parents-and, by extension, Liz herself-are victims, first, of the War on Drugs (Liz’s father is jailed for selling painkillers) and later of the AIDS crisis (they’re both diagnosed with the disease).ĭave Pelzer’s memoir A Child Called It (1995) bears a certain resemblance to Breaking Night. Among the many demographics at risk of contracting the disease were gay people, people who had unprotected sex, and intravenous drug users.

Beginning in the early 1980s, a frightening number of Americans died from a little-understood immunodeficiency disease, AIDS. Another important historical event of the 1980s, at the time when Liz was growing up, was the AIDS crisis. During this decade, punishment for the use or sale of drugs skyrocketed, even as the use of these drugs continued to grow.

The War on Drugs was officially “declared” by President Richard Nixon in a 1971 speech, but it is more often associated with the 1980s and the presidential administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H. These substances were particularly easy to procure in large cities such as New York, and neighborhoods like Greenwich Village quickly became famous for their drug culture and nonconformist spirit. Throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s, the use of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and other drugs increased enormously in American society. Two major historical events loom over Breaking Night: the War on Drugs and the AIDS crisis.

Breaking night by liz murray