false 39442020 1090670 235662 0312019009 9780312019006 51 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172978667m/235662.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172978667s/235662.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/235662.The_Mayor_of_Castro_Street_The_Life_and_Times_of_Harvey_Milk 4.20 250 The Mayor of Castro Street appeared in 1982, the very idea of a gay political biography was brand-new. While biographies of literary and artistic figures (both living and dead) were a popular genre, there had been no openly gay political figure who merited a full-length book. Harvey Milk--a gay political organizer who became the first openly gay city supervisor in San Francisco and was then assassinated (along with liberal mayor George Moscone)--was the obvious choice for such a book. And Randy Shilts--a young reporter who had risen up through the gay press to become the first openly gay reporter with a gay "beat" in the American mainstream press--was the perfect person to write it. While his later works such as And the Band Played On and Conduct Unbecoming were based on hard-hitting, fact-driven reportage, Shilts's tone in The Mayor of Castro Street is softer, more focused on the narrative of Harvey Milk's political rise from running a small business on Castro Street, to organizing local gay men and lesbians around grass-roots issues, to winning an elected office. But in many ways this is also a forceful and engaging story of the gay rights movement in the second half of the 20th century. Thus, Shilts follows the growth of the Castro as a gay neighborhood and the growth of San Francisco's gay community from a ragtag collection of people who socialized and sexualized together into a vibrant and political force. --Michael Bronski ]]> 15877 4.37 1975 294 1982 5 1 false Sat Dec 06 08:36:02 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 06 08:45:11 -0800 2008 more...]]>