the last book I ever read (The World Only Spins Forward: The Ascent of Angels in America, excerpt ten)

from The World Only Spins Forward: The Ascent of Angels in America by Isaac Butler and Dan Kois:

ELLEN McLAUGHLIN (the Angel in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, 1990-94): John Deary, who made the wings for Broadway, had AIDS. He was quite sick while he was making those wings. They were gorgeous, an incredible accomplishment, because they were enormous, but they were light enough for me to wear—something like twenty-five pounds of aluminum and feathers—and I could close and open them with the movements of my back muscles. They were the last thing he created. He made it to opening night, he got to see them, and he died soon thereafter. I felt like I carried him on my back after he died and I was always grateful for the extraordinary care he expended on them. They were something to behold.