Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993 (by Sarah Schulman)

This 750-page history of ACT UP is written by a lesbian who was part of the movement at the time,  and serves to inform as well as counteract the dominance of white gay men in the narrative of AIDS activism.  

I've strongly recommended this book (and even bought it for someone as a Christmas gift, shhh don't tell) so clearly I think its strengths are greater than its flaws; it does have flaws though. First of all, it's based on oral interviews but isn't presented as an oral history.  This means it reads confusingly (is this a quote or is this the author talking) and at the same time, the quotes are often repetitive and not edited anyway. It would have been stronger with an oral history format and some tighter editing. 

Secondly, it isn't organized chronologically and instead thematically, which is interesting and not necessarily a bad choice, but sometimes means the reader is lacking needed context.  There are lots of references to "voting on the floor" and affinity groups, for example, but these are not clearly defined at the outset of the book. You can pick it up from context but it would have been stronger to orient the reader who may be less familiar with the structure of ACT UP.  I still don't have a clear understanding of how a meeting was actually structured, 750 pages later.

So why am I recommending it? It's designed to be a playbook for activism and thus is 100% relevant to the resistance movement of today. (One of the ACT UP actions was a protest at Trump Tower, and Tony Fauci figures prominently, not in the most positive way. Amazingly relevant even decades later.) It is inspiring to those of us who want to effect change. It gives a voice to women and people of color in a narrative that has been dominated by the voices of white gay men.  It's full of fascinating and heartbreaking anecdotes, and truly worth engaging with if you're interested in AIDS activism or activism of any kind.

Schulman is definitely not impartial and doesn't pretend to be; this book isn't the be all and end all. But it's a worthy addition to the canon of literature about AIDS in the United States.