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The Mayor Of Castro Street: The Life And Times Of Harvey Milk (1982)

by Randy Shilts(Favorite Author)

4.27 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0312560850 (ISBN13: 9780312560850)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

St. Martin's Griffin

review 1: I picked this up because it fits into my interest in politics as well as my interest in SF history. I expected it to be primarily about Harvey Milk, but it really doubles as a history of the city during the seventies, and touches on modern-seeming topics including gentrification, rent control, activism v. power, etc. Well worth a read even if you're not particularly interested in gay rights or Milk himself (though you'll find that part interesting as well).
review 2: So many things to say on this one! Long review. This is a great read for those not only interested in the history of gay rights, but also those interested in biographies of dynamic political leaders and the powerful change they can inspire in people, despite -- and/or because of -- their personal l... moreives and complex character profiles. Harvey Milk is super fascinating, period. In some ways, he was a consummate politician, shaking hands everywhere he went, obsessed with the concept of "political theatre," forging alliances, getting the media to present the story he wanted told... But he was also a real idealist and a frustratingly stubborn public representative for the underserved community, which is not that easy to find in a big city anymore. It sounds like he never compromised on a damn thing when it came to the big stuff. I get a little grossed out whenever I interact with politicians because I feel like they're 700% focused on trying to win votes and force their agenda. Half the time I don't agree with them, and the other half, I may agree with part of it, but I don't really like the person because they're just smarmy or whatever. And you can definitely see from this book that Harvey Milk was obsessed with winning votes and furthering his agenda, but the agenda was always about fundamentally important community development issues -- expanding rights for the vulnerable, fighting corporate interests, and developing cities from the inside instead of the outside. Another thing I liked about this book is that it presented a neutral profile of a politician who didn't have a pearly white chaste personal life. I sincerely don't give a single solitary shit what politicians do in their personal life, as long as they're not hypocritizing against their own political platforms or committing some sort of crime. Maybe this is why I still love Bill Clinton - because I agree with the majority of his actions as President (and 99% of his actions post-President), and I never judged Hilary (who is also mah girl) for not leaving him - because it is absolutely none of our business and it has literally nothing to do with their jobs of serving us as public officials. This book unabashedly shows Harvey Milk as a free-lovin' guy who had a lot of boyfriends (even when he had serious boyfriends), and again, it literally had no effect on his work as a Supervisor. Randy Shilts was also open about the fact that he was pretty demanding and not that cool sometimes, so I appreciated that an honest look at that.I would also highly recommend reading the speeches in the appendix because they're truly awesome take-no-shit calls for action. At the same time, those speeches were a big bummer because he actually talked a lot about non-exclusively gay issues like fighting big business and tourist interests, making San Francisco an accessible place to live, developing neighborhood-centric city plans... and depending on which report you look at, San Francisco is now in the top 5 most expensive cities in America to live in, above LA, Boston, DC, etc. Such is the legacy of those with unpopular ideas, I guess.What I was not expecting from this book was the final 50 pages, and this is because of my own ignorance of what happened in the aftermath of Milk's death. It's weird to say spoiler alert, as it happened like 30+ years ago, but it is absolutely insane what happened to Milk's murderer in the trial. It recalls a lot of ridiculous non-murder verdict in the past 20 years (including 2013).One small note is that the edition I read wasn't really updated from its original 1980 publication date so I had to do some Googling afterwards to find out what everyone was up to. Overall a really fascinating political read. less

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