In what year in the novel, Acqua Calda, set?

The is set in the year 1995. The mid-1990's were a time of transition in the history of HIV (AIDS): up to that point, there had been no cure (and there still is, technically, no such thing), but there was just beginning to be positive results in developing preventative medical treatment. Gerald, the novel's central character, is part of an experiment testing such a treatment, meaning that its promise of a new lease on life and Gerald's experience of a new lease on his creative and sexual lives become parallel and entwined components of the narrative's core elements.