A review by knifecrow
My Government Means to Kill Me by Rasheed Newson

2.75

ooooh my god I would not have finished this if I wasn't reading it for book club. this is not a novel so much as it is teaching adults about the history of ACT UP in 80s New York as though it is teaching nine year olds by having an everyman protagonist somehow interact with every major historical figure it is possible to squeeze between the pages and also collect all of the correct merchandise (the amount of footnotes explaining how Our Protagonist just happens to own a recreation of a popular slogan tshirt or button from the era????) I thought the footnotes and the framing device of lessons learned were going to go somewhere interesting and postmodern at first -- why would a historical fiction novel constantly lean on footnotes to tell you, the reader, that actually a writer made this up and there is no evidence that this person was in this place at this particular time -- but they were just... there. everyone had the correct opinions and interactions, the correct sum-ups of complicated relationships between coalitions, activist groups, and individuals. oh my god why couldn't we have read John Rechy or Samuel Delaney or for god's sake a short and snappy non-fiction history of ACT UP or a major figure therein I'm going to eat my desk