Reviews tagging 'Addiction'

The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk by Randy Shilts

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zakcebulski's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.5


This biography was outstanding.
Written, published and released just 4 years after Harvey Milk's horrifically tragic assassination.
Regardless, I feel that author Randy Shilts did a fantastic job of writing a comprehensive and coherent course through the life of one of the most important LGBTQ+ advocates of the 20th century.

Harvey Milk has always been a fascinating person to me as I knew his and Mayor George Moscone's assassinations happened within days of the mass murder in Jonestown Guyana. But, learning about this man's life was truly amazing.
I had no idea how fatalistic Milk was- he was quoted many times to talk about his rapidly approaching death and all of the challenges he faced in getting things done before he was ultimately killed.
I also found it fascinating to learn about how he really only started to get involved in politics in his mid-40s. He went from a camera store owner and local popular figure of Castro Street in San Francisco to a city supervisor. But, I love how his journey to the supervisor position was not easy. It is illustrated how he came to verbal blows time and again with people who were against his beliefs, and even those who shared his beliefs. I thought that this was so interesting as he truly was comfortable with being a man alone in order to not waver on his beliefs.
I felt a swelling of pride when Harvey won, because his life struggles were illustrated to show where he came from and where he ended up because of his own trust in himself. From a young man he was a believer in himself and was willing to be the perpetual underdog and live in near squalor and destitute in order to pursue his beliefs. I thought that the poignancy of the condition of his clothes- socks with holes, ragged underwear- was the perfect way to show the internals of Harvey Milk- he was a man who did all he could- comforts be damned.

I also greatly appreciated that while Harvey Milk is portrayed as a knight of salvation for the LGBTQ+ community, that he is shown to have flaws. He is shown to have a short fused temper, he was also partially responsible for forcing the man who thwarted the second assassination attempt on then President Gerald Ford to come out of the closet. I think that the importance of this is twofold. It helps to illustrate that Milk, like us, was just a man, capable of mistakes. It also helped to show that while he largely had good intentions at heart, he was not above using people if need be which helps to humanize a larger than life figure.

I also thought that the ripple effects after his and the mayor's deaths were illustrated in a sickening way. It showed how people like his fuckwit worthless human assassin Dan White was let off with little more than a slap on the wrist for assassinating not only a supervisor of SF, but the fucking motherfucking MAYOR of SF not only because he was a firefighter and a cop, but because he was straight and white.
I think that this juxtaposition was truly horrible because it showed that while Milk had made an impact on the lives of gay people in SF, and had given them hope, there was still so much that was not changed.
It also showed how Dianne Feinstein got in to office, and how she held on to power that she is still holding on to in her skeletal hands and how she subverted many people's wishes. 
The illustration of how so many major events were so closely linked in this time in San Fran was amazingly written and I truly have to commend Shilts for his work. 
This book was one that nearly brought me to frustration tears time and again, especially after learning about the aftermath of Milk's death. He wanted to be a beacon of hope for the gay community, and while that is what he became in the last bits of his life, and after his death it would have been amazing for Harvey to have seen the positive impact which he made. 
As a nonmember of the LGBTQ+ community, but, as an ardent supporter and ally of it, I implore both members and nonmembers of this community to read this book. It has opened my eyes and educated me in many ways, and shown me the ways wherein I still have much  to learn. This was outstanding. 

#FuckDanWhite

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