![]() ![]() Shilts had published one book previously, The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk. “Gay rights” was certainly part of the lexicon in 1987, but not well accepted within the civil rights realm. Born in 1951, he had earned respect in the newsroom after obtaining a job there during 1982 in spite of-maybe in some sense because of-being openly homosexual. Randy Shilts, the author, did not worry much about those perceptions. Those who did understand the workings of the newly identified virus knew that the subject matter was depressing, dark and vaguely dirty-pretty much unmentionable in polite society, where reading salons exist. Go ahead, say it three times fast: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. The full name of the disease did not roll off the tongue, as the cliché goes. Not all that many potential readers even understood the meaning of the AIDS acronym. Few of the people involved in the book’s acquisition, production and marketing harbored hope that it would sell briskly. In 1987, a book carrying the title And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic reached retail stores. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |