Queer Reader approached Sarah Schulman’s latest book with some trepidation. As a veteran of ACT UP, this reviewer had grown tired of the misrepresentations, innaccuracies, and false narratives. As much as Queer Reader admired David France’s impeccably researched How to Survive a Plague, its construction was at times infuriating. It might just as well have been entitled, How a Handful of Clever Gay (white) Men Outsmarted the Virus. In Let the Record Show, Susan Schulman blows up that premise with a vengeance.
Let the Record Show isn’t a page-turner like How to Survive a Plague. It’s a rougher, choppier, yet ultimately more satisfying read. We hear from the women of ACT UP, people of color, housing activists, advocates for needle exchange, and artists among others. A wide variety of actions are described in detail by the people who were there. These actions weren’t always sanctioned by the floor. The affinity group model allowed for some of them to be done entirely in secret. But all of these activists had one thing in common: we were united in anger.
ACT UP wasn’t a monolith. It was a movement. And somehow Ms. Schulman captures the zeitgeist of it. What was it that caused so many people to push the limits–shouting down politicians, occupying offices, shutting down government offices and even demanding that police officers arrest them? Knowing what we’ve learned about police conduct, why would anyone choose to be handcuffed and thrown into a police van? Lil Uzi Vert had not yet been born, but his immortal lyrics perfectly define the mood of this movement: “Push me to the edge. All my friends are dead.”
As a history, Ms. Schulman’s book is exhaustive, comprehensive, impressive. One hundred eighty-eight survivors were interviewed. And yet it is dangerous to draw too many conclusions from these interviews. Because, quite frankly, the mortality rate was shockingly high. Names of members who had died in the past week were announced at the beginning of the Monday night meetings. Sometimes this would invoke an angry “No!” from someone in the room. Or an involuntary gasp. And the meeting went on. There would be no time for mourning on Monday nights.
Reading this magnificent book, Queer Reader couldn’t help but think of those whose voices were silenced by the same thief in the night. A “Remembrance” feature throughout the book reminds us of the lives that were lost along the way. These are the most poignant pages. And one can’t help wondering how different this book would be if they were alive today. Thinking specifically of David Wojnarowicz, Vito Russo, Steve Gendin, Robert Garcia, David Feinberg. We’ll never know for sure what they would say to us today.
But this book helps.
Needless to say, Queer Reader strongly recommends this essential history.
Sarah Schulman’s Let the Record Show, A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993 is published by Farrar, Stauss and Giroux.
9/9/2022