When the World Falls Apart : IN THE ABSENCE OF ANGELS : A Hollywood Family’s Courageous Story <i> By Elizabeth Glaser with Laura Palmer (G.P. Putnam’s Sons: $21.95; 304 pp.) </i>

On one day Elizabeth Glaser believed herself to be among the truly blessed: young, beautiful intelligent, affluent, happily married to a handsome and talented actor/director; the mother of bright, perfect small children; the employer of an ideal nanny; beloved by her friends and family; involved in a satisfying, stimulating teaching career; newly moved into her dream house by the sea. On the next, the world fell apart. As a result of blood transfusions following labor in 1981, Elizabeth Glaser was infected with the HIV virus, and unknowingly passed it on to both her infant daughter Ariel (through breast milk) and later, in the course of a second pregnancy, to her son Jake.

“In the Absence of Angels” is the account of what transpired over the next months and years--a painful, heartfelt story of shock, grief and the loss of a daughter, but eventually also of a woman’s fierce determination to find within herself the strength to persevere, to seek whatever measure of justice remained possible.

It takes nothing away from Ms. Glaser’s courage to say that as she describes her life up to its awful turning point, she strikes the reader as pleasant, yet not extraordinary: all-American, a bit romantic, delighted by the economic security that followed her husband’s meteoric success in the television series “Starsky and Hutch.”

Certainly, she’s not without a social conscience--she’s a special-education teacher by training--but the scope of her concern is relatively narrow and her ambition to effect positive change is relatively modest. She’s a decent person with whose rather vague good intentions we can identify, a person caught up in the flow and tumble of events that have turned out better than she ever could have expected, and who, though grateful for her good luck, often took it for granted.

Before the advent of their grave illness, the Glaser family seemed destined for an enviable future. Yes, there would have been problems, heartaches, disappointment, but those would have been balanced by occasional joy, by the luxury of ordinary shared days, by the wisdom and gradual acceptance of mortality that comes with the passage of time. If we’re fortunate enough to do so, each of us likes to think we’ve made a bargain with our fragility: between birth and death, bad things are supposed to be doled out within manageable, predictable limits, never more than we can absorb, never unmitigated by hope. Not so with the inexorable certainty of AIDS--the epitome of the unfair, the unmerciful, the unrelenting.

There were no precedents for dealing with the fate Elizabeth and Paul Michael Glaser faced, no comforting, pertinent storybooks to read their daughter, and no automatic expectation of meaningful community sympathy for their family’s plight. Just the opposite. Even those who are intellectually aware that AIDS is not contagious through casual contact are terrified at the specter of the disease, and ostracism too often replaces the compassionate response of embrace. People with AIDS find themselves the victims of ignorance as well as of a virulent retrovirus.

Faced with the unthinkable, the Glasers somehow coped, stumbling, stunned, from one doctor, one medical procedure, one remission to the next. Ari was a dazzling child, full of enthusiasms that could not be fulfilled through the ordinary channels of school. Jake was the picture of health. Paul’s career as a film director had taken off. And Elizabeth felt fine, looked terrific, but her T-cells were dangerously low. The family’s first priority, understandably, was to preserve the illusion of normalcy for as long as possible, and so only the closest of relatives, the most trusted of friends, the parents of the children’s frequent playmates were told the truth.

Indignation is an empowering emotion, especially when it is inspired by the needs of one’s baby. AZT, the only drug effective in slowing the progress of AIDS, was inexplicably not available to Ariel or to any other child in America, and Ms. Glaser made it her business to find out why. What she learned through frequent trips to Washington was startling: Of all the categories of people who were HIV-positive, the least was known about the disease’s impact on the very young. Children with AIDS had no lobbyists, represented no block of voters or contributors, and had been all but forgotten . . . until Elizabeth Glaser and her two longtime friends, Susan DeLaurentis and Susan Zeegen, formed the Pediatric AIDS Foundation to fill the void.

Through determined advocacy and by calling in every chip--one Hollywood contact arranged an audience with President and Mrs. Reagan, other friends volunteered to serve on the board, and even Cher, whose daughter Chastity had once been Elizabeth’s reading student, sang at a glitzy fund raiser--the organization developed a high profile and began to distribute money for research. It is the beneficiary of a portion of the profits of this book.

Ms. Glaser is clear-eyed about why she has been so successful, as opposed to a poor AIDS-bearing woman from the inner city with no direct lines to the powerful: “I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a fine example of what’s right and also what’s wrong with our system,” she says. “What can be more American than one person who tries to make a difference? But isn’t it an outrage to have one system of health care for the rich and another for the poor?”

She is, moreover, alternately forgiving (of the blood donor who unintentionally provided the serum that both saved her life and terribly altered it), stoic (in regard to a government that repeatedly breaks its promises to provide better care and a greater investigative effort), and furious (at the National Enquirer, which tried to exploit the story, “for invading the sanctity of my family and my friends”).

“In the Absence of Angels” is an honest memoir, an extended thank you to the many men and women who stood by the Glasers in their times of need or who responded when called upon. It is open, yet also restrained, appropriately pulling back from the most private moments but revealing the kinds of everyday anecdotes--Elizabeth’s initial touristy reaction to being in Washington, Kitty Dukakis’ immediate empathy in contrast to a distracted Barbara Bush, the decisions about what an amateur fund raiser should wear when approaching various potential donors--that lend authenticity or even, incredibly, humor. The book is written in simple, unpolished prose, direct and conversational, and so is all the more eloquent when occasionally it rises to wrenching insight. As Ms. Glaser generously tells her story, it’s the unexpected kindnesses that knock you out, every bit as much as the tragedy.

The Glasers have allowed us a glimpse into the sadnesses and the challenges of their lives not out of any desire for notoriety but rather because their example may be instructive. Theirs is an irresistible plea for tolerance, concern and action, a tale told amazingly without rancor, a love story that is not soon forgotten.

One closes this book with a new empathy for all AIDS sufferers, but especially with enormous affection for a little boy, and a well-remembered little girl, and with admiration for a husband who stayed by them out of love, and rooting for a brave woman who made of a disaster a triumph.