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Reviews tagging 'Suicide'
Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT Up New York, 1987-1993 by Sarah Schulman
1 review
precise's review
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
fast-paced
4.25
This book consolidates interviews from the ACT UP Oral History Project (https://www.actuporalhistory.org/) into a narrative about what ACT UP accomplished over the time it was active, and how/why it worked. I thought it was really interesting; as a millennial queer formerly living in NYC, before I read this I vaguely knew ACT UP shaped the life I live today to some extent, but they dissolved before I was born so I didn't know exactly how, and I feel it is my responsibility to understand our history.
Some highlights:
* as someone who currently works in the real-world data/pharma space I learned a lot from the discussion of how ACT UP's Treatment and Data committee(s) changed the FDA and NIH. I appreciated the takeaway that they were successful in part because streamlining clinical trials was something pharma companies wanted too.
* as a data engineer the "direct mail" advertising was personally interesting; this is what they did in a pre-internet world I guess?
* as someone who wants to make change, and works with systems comprised mostly of people, in my hobbies and somewhat my day job, the discussion of how to get activists all moving in the same direction was useful to me; the chapters at the end about the dissolution of the group were interesting for this reason too.
* I appreciated the focus on intersectionality and felt that the author's voice was not too heavy-handed in the moments where she called out omissions (such as when she points out that Larry Kramer in his interview did not acknowledge the contributions of women)
And lowlights:
* I didn't know the timeline going in (having read only the first third of And The Band Played On before dropping it) and seeing multiple participants reference things that happened without having context for what/when was confusing (e.g. we get several perspectives on Kramer's famous statement at a meeting that "In a year half of you will be dead", but the first one isn't contextualized well)
* The ending about the author's personal illness felt self-indulgent
* The book is over 700 pages long and I would definitely not have read it as quickly had I not had some air travel this year. It's engaging but the content is pretty heavy. I think it took me like 10 hours to read which is long for me. The print is fairly small on those pages too.
And other things to know:
* Anthony Fauci is not interviewed but plays a fairly large role in this book; a few other infectious disease specialist names were familiar to me as someone who lived through the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA
Some highlights:
* as someone who currently works in the real-world data/pharma space I learned a lot from the discussion of how ACT UP's Treatment and Data committee(s) changed the FDA and NIH. I appreciated the takeaway that they were successful in part because streamlining clinical trials was something pharma companies wanted too.
* as a data engineer the "direct mail" advertising was personally interesting; this is what they did in a pre-internet world I guess?
* as someone who wants to make change, and works with systems comprised mostly of people, in my hobbies and somewhat my day job, the discussion of how to get activists all moving in the same direction was useful to me; the chapters at the end about the dissolution of the group were interesting for this reason too.
* I appreciated the focus on intersectionality and felt that the author's voice was not too heavy-handed in the moments where she called out omissions (such as when she points out that Larry Kramer in his interview did not acknowledge the contributions of women)
And lowlights:
* I didn't know the timeline going in (having read only the first third of And The Band Played On before dropping it) and seeing multiple participants reference things that happened without having context for what/when was confusing (e.g. we get several perspectives on Kramer's famous statement at a meeting that "In a year half of you will be dead", but the first one isn't contextualized well)
* The ending about the author's personal illness felt self-indulgent
* The book is over 700 pages long and I would definitely not have read it as quickly had I not had some air travel this year. It's engaging but the content is pretty heavy. I think it took me like 10 hours to read which is long for me. The print is fairly small on those pages too.
And other things to know:
* Anthony Fauci is not interviewed but plays a fairly large role in this book; a few other infectious disease specialist names were familiar to me as someone who lived through the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Terminal illness, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Chronic illness
Moderate: Drug use, Blood, and Police brutality
Minor: Excrement, Suicide, and Dementia
Most content warnings described by third parties being interviewed after the fact
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