This program includes an introduction read by the author. One of O, the Oprah Magazine's 32 LGBTQ Books That Will Change the Literary Landscape in 2021, one of Vogue's 9 LGBTQ+ Books We're Looking Forward to This Spring, one of and Cosmopolitan's LGBTQ+ Books to Add to Your Reading List in 2021, one of The Observer's Spring Books You Don't Want to Miss, and one of Bloomberg's 14 Books to Put on Your Reading List This Spring "A masterpiece of historical research and intellectual analysis that creates many windows into both a vanished world and the one that emerged from it, the one we live in now." --Alexander Chee Twenty years in the making, Sarah Schulman's Let the Record Show is the most comprehensive political history ever assembled of ACT UP and American AIDS activism In just six years, ACT UP, New York, a broad and unlikely coalition of activists from all races, genders, sexualities, and backgrounds, changed the world. Armed with rancor, desperation, intelligence, and creativity, it took on the AIDS crisis with an indefatigable, ingenious, and multifaceted attack on the corporations, institutions, governments, and individuals who stood in the way of AIDS treatment for all. They stormed the FDA and NIH in Washington, DC, and started needle exchange programs in New York; they took over Grand Central Terminal and fought to change the legal definition of AIDS to include women; they transformed the American insurance industry, weaponized art and advertising to push their agenda, and battled—and beat—The New York Times, the Catholic Church, and the pharmaceutical industry. Their activism, in its complex and intersectional power, transformed the lives of people with AIDS and the bigoted society that had abandoned them. Based on more than two hundred interviews with ACT UP members and rich with lessons for today’s activists, Let the Record Show is a revelatory exploration—and long-overdue reassessment—of the coalition’s inner workings, conflicts, achievements, and ultimate fracture. Schulman, one of the most revered queer writers and thinkers of her generation, explores the how and the why, examining, with her characteristic rigor and bite, how a group of desperate outcasts changed America forever, and in the process created a livable future for generations of people across the world. A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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“A significant boots-on-the-ground account…Readers are right there with activists, hearing their stories from them but also others who knew them…Vital, democratic truth-telling.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Offers younger queer activists a rare study of their own history.”
— Vogue“Reminds us that queer people have long known a thing or two about living through a devastating plague.”
— Harper’s Bazaar“A must-read.”
— Library Journal (starred review)Be the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Sarah Schulman is the author of more than twenty works of fiction, nonfiction, and theater and the producer and screenwriter of several feature films. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, New York Times, Slate, and many other outlets. She is a distinguished professor of humanities at College of Staten Island, a fellow at the New York Institute of Humanities, the recipient of multiple fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and was presented in 2018 with Publishing Triangle's Bill Whitehead Award. She is also the cofounder of the MIX New York LGBT Experimental Film and Video Festival and the co-director of the groundbreaking ACT UP Oral History Project. A lifelong New Yorker, she is a longtime activist for queer rights and female empowerment and serves on the advisory board of Jewish Voice for Peace.
Rosalyn Coleman Williams is the director of the award-winning short film Allergic to Nuts. She is a 2003 Fox Fellow Award winner and was nominated for a 2006 Barrymore Award for Best Actress for her performance in Intimate Apparel at the Philadelphia Theater Company. Her film credits include Vanilla Sky, Our Song, and Music of the Heart. Rosalyn is a member of New York Women in Film and Television, the East Coast Writers Collective, and a lifetime member of the Actors Studio.