In her recent memoir, “Third Girl From the Left,” Christine Barker writes about interrupting her burgeoning showbiz profession as a dancer in “A Chorus Line” to take care of her older brother, Laughlin Barker, former president of Perry Ellis International, who was dying of AIDS.

This was within the mid-Nineteen Eighties when there was a lot ignorance and stigma related to AIDS that neither Laughlin nor his business partner and lover Perry Ellis would disclose their illnesses. On the time, their failing health was shrouded in secrecy to guard their highly successful business, the staff and the brand, which had established itself on the forefront of American fashion for straightforward, understated dressing. Actually, in 1986, their obituaries attributed their deaths to lung disease for the 37-year-old Laughlin and, 4 months later, viral encephalitis for the 46-year-old Ellis.

Christine Barker starts her book talking about leaving her hometown of Sante Fe, Latest Mexico, to pursue knowledgeable dance profession in Latest York. She studies with Alvin Ailey, Luigi’s Jazz Dance Centre on the American Ballet Theater School and gets jobs in summer stock, dinner theater and national tours. After dancing alongside Tommy Tune, she meets musical theater director Michael Bennett and wins the role of Kristine within the London production of “A Chorus Line,” the groundbreaking musical about Broadway dancers baring their souls as they audition for a musical. She then joined the Latest York forged, with which she performs for six years.

“I used to be in heaven. I used to be living my dream. How lucky to be in your 20s and you might be living your dream. So many individuals don’t get that probability in life. Consider me, I used to be so aware of that as a dancer. So many individuals could never get what I got, and I thanked Michael Bennett and God day by day,” says Barker during an interview in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Just as her profession was taking off, her brother Laughlin, who helped construct Ellis’ business with key licensing deals resembling the Perry Ellis America deal between Perry Ellis and Levi, Strauss & Co., was diagnosed with AIDS, and he or she left the Broadway show to take care of him.

What’s interesting is how much Barker is capable of recall from that era, which she attributed to her grandmother, who spent the last week of her life with Barker and told the then-12-year-old girl that she should all the time keep a journal.

“My father was within the military, we moved in all places, we lived in Europe as a toddler, and he or she said, ‘You have got very interesting life experiences. You must all the time keep a journal.’ It made an unlimited impact on me,” Barker says.

She says she began keeping journals and had boxes of them. When Laughlin told her he had AIDS, she was sworn to secrecy because he was so concerned about what would occur with the business. He felt the business would die “and hundreds of individuals would lose jobs.”

She says the pressure was enormous. “And the way in which that I coped was the writing. I could be with him and Perry at their house, and I’d take the subway back downtown, and I’d write on the subway. I even have legal pads and a few parts of my book were lifted exactly from that,” she says.

Barker says she knew instinctively that she had a story. “I come from a theater background and also you understand story whenever you do theater, and also you particularly understand story whenever you’re doing ‘A Chorus Line,’ because ‘A Chorus Line’ is beautifully written. It appears to be quite simple, nevertheless it’s very highly constructed within the stories that they tell and what they selected to inform. And the way it teaches you to inform a story where there’s a way of purpose and a way of urgency,” she says.

“A Chorus Line” featured real stories from real people. Originally, Bennett had invited dancers to return to workshops and discuss their lives. The people whose stories were used got a percentage of the show, and the individuals who played the unique parts also had a small piece. Some people didn’t get hired to play themselves, but their stories were used or were blended.

Within the book, Barker gives a behind-the-scenes account of the highs and lows of dancing in “A Chorus Line,” when the spread of a devastating disease is throughout her, destroying a generation of artists. She describes the horror of going through such a situation with so little information, the necessity to keep every thing a secret and the devastating impact of stigma.

Barker says that when she saw Larry Kramer’s “The Normal Heart” on the Public Theater in Latest York, she felt people could only get the reality after they went to the theater. “He wrote the reality, and day by day on the Public Theater they reported statistics. The Gay Men’s Health Crisis hadn’t been formed yet, ACT UP hadn’t been formed yet, there was nothing. What there was was this play and Larry Kramer, and other people could get statistics there. You might not get statistics in The Latest York Times. By writing that play and Joe Papp producing, it was enormously powerful. Once I saw that play, and knew what was going to go on [the decline of someone’s health once they had AIDS], that’s when I made a decision to depart and handle Laughlin,” Barker says.

She never had any regrets about quitting the show to turn into Laughlin’s caregiver, “even though it modified it modified my life drastically,” she admits.

“You see this over and all over again. Women who’re faced with very difficult selections and turn into caregivers. I never regretted it because I spent the last a part of his life with him. I spent the last a part of Perry’s life with him. I spent the last a part of loads of my friends’ lives with them. What I learned about life and what I learned about making selections and making decisions — one thing I became very aware of is how women are impacted in times of emergencies,” she says.

Barker says her brother didn’t come out of the closet for a really very long time; he married a girl in 1971, served within the U.S. Navy; had a daughter, Kate, and had gotten divorced.

“When he went to Georgetown Law School, it was principally against the law to be gay. He had a job at a white shoe law firm, and he would have been fired. It was only when Laughlin met Perry [around 1979-1980] that he had the arrogance to say he was gay. I knew he was gay, but no person in my family did. He and Perry lived privately. They weren’t ostentatious. They were the star couple because they showed that gay men could have a life together, and so they didn’t must be afraid and so they could exit in public. That’s what they did. They weren’t going to advertise it, but in addition they weren’t going to disclaim it.”

Within the book, Barker describes how Laughlin and Perry’s relationship just clicked, although their personalities differed.

“To the connection, Laughlin brought a more tempered, Madison Avenue sensibility along with his Georgetown law degree and extensive experience living and dealing in Europe. Perry was a master of promotion, well-mannered like a Southern aristocrat, but with a shyness that masked coldness and rigidity. Laughlin was the other. He was charismatic and warm. He could endear himself to the cleansing staff as easily as Georgia O’Keefe, which he once did at a museum opening, when after being introduced she ignored the press and walked across the exhibit with Laughlin,” Barker writes.

Within the mid-Nineteen Eighties, the press was skittish about reporting on gay life, she says. “The lack of knowledge, no social media, led to misinformation, confusion and fear, further isolating those of us coping with AIDS,” Barker adds.

“There was such a stigma. People don’t remember what that stigma was like and the stigma was merciless. The Reagan administration, the Moral Majority, Pat Buchanan and Jerry Falwell. Jerry Falwell was on TV saying, ‘AIDS is the wrath of God upon homosexuals,’” she says.

Following their deaths “there was a lot discuss Perry, and there was never any discuss Perry and Laughlin’s relationship,” Barker says. “Perry’s obituary within the Times and most places never mentioned Laughlin. It was the business attempting to separate themselves from Laughlin. That was very upsetting to me. [She says she didn’t get invited to Ellis’ memorial service at the Society for Ethical Culture]. Laughlin had created the Levi Strauss deal. He built the business from five licensees to 23.” She says the business became very successful when Laughlin took over Perry Ellis International.

(In Ellis’ obituary in WWD, Laughlin was described within the article because the designer’s “closest friend and companion.” In Laughlin’s obituary in WWD, there isn’t a mention of Ellis as a survivor or companion.)

After Barker left the theater and lots of of her friends had died of AIDS, she raised her children and earned her M.F.A. in writing at Sarah Lawrence College, where she also finished her bachelor’s degree. She was in her 40s on the time.

Barker might be a part of a book discussion on the Bryant Park Reading Room on Wednesday from noon to 1:30 p.m. She says she waited to publish her book until her parents — who lacked tolerance for his or her son’s lifestyle — died.

“My parents were of a special generation. That generation had it mistaken, but I’m not taken with repeating that. I’m taken with telling the reality,” she says.