A review by ruttery
And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts

4.0

I can only read this book in very small doses and I still haven't finished it yet, because it's a lot. It is incredibly hefty and detailed, but a remarkable feat of journalism. AIDS is/was a truly grisly and horrible way to die and a catastrophic health and political failure, I knew some detail but this book made me realise the extent of it. This combined with the show It's A Sin have left a deep impression on me. I will never stop being haunted by the thought of thousands of gay men being left to die of shame, alone, on hospital wards. Docked a star just because I probably didn't need to know the details of every single conversation between every health professional whose names I've forgotten, and also the inaccurate scapegoating of "Patient Zero", which turned out to be false. I was a bit surprised that the author, who is gay himself, chose to scapegoat one particular victim as being more promiscuous than anybody else.