The Mayor of Castro Street
Books | History / United States / 20th Century
4
Randy Shilts
The Mayor of Castro Street is Shilts's acclaimed story of Harvey Milk, the man whose personal life, public career, and tragic assassination mirrored the dramatic and unprecedented emergence of the gay community in America during the 1970s.Known as "The Mayor of Castro Street" even before he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Harvey Milk's personal and political life is a story full of personal tragedies and political intrigues, assassinations at City Hall, massive riots in the streets, the miscarriage of justice, and the consolidation of gay power and gay hope.The Mayor of Castro Street is a story of personal tragedies and political intrigues, assassination in City Hall and massive riots in the streets, the miscarriage of justice and the consolidation of gay power and gay hope.Harvey Milk has been the subject of numerous books and movies, including the Academy Award–winning 1984 documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk. His life is also the basis of a 2008 major motion picture, Milk, starring Sean Penn.
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Author
Randy Shilts
Pages
400
Publisher
St. Martin's Publishing Group
Published Date
2008-10-14
ISBN
1466829672 9781466829671
Community ReviewsSee all
"This book was a tough read, it took me many months to get through, but was honestly one of the most heart touching books I’ve ever read. This book covers the entire life of Harvey Milk extremely thoroughly. If you just want to read about his political career and not as much about his personal life I would recommend skipping about the first third of the book and start reading when he moves to Castro Street in San Fransisco. This book made me laugh and made me cry many, many times. It broke my heart to read about Harvey fighting for issues we are still fighting about today, almost 50 years later. It also gave me hope for the future to see how far the movement has come, to read Harvey’s “hope speech”, to learn about the togetherness of Castro Street and the way people came together because of Harvey. May his legacy live on forever. This book was only written a few years after Harvey’s assassination, however, it felt very factual, that it was history that was set in stone. Reading this book 40 years after its publication was a very interesting experience. After his assassination many colleagues stated they thought this would push the movement back 15-20 years, reading this now makes me wonder if his assassination pushed the movement back even further than that. Overall I felt inspired after finishing this book, to be a bigger part in my community, to uplift my fellow queer community, and low-key makes me want to go get involved in my local government lol."
Kass F.