Description
A biography of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay city official in the nation, recounts his public and personal life, and examines the emergence of the San Francisco gay community as a social and political force.
Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
New York : St. Martin's Press, [1988], c1982.
Collection
User reviews
LibraryThing member DanDanRevolution
Harvey, the atmosphere, and the entire decade glow with vitality. Excellent.
LibraryThing member Kenn1959
The life, times and tragic assassination of an icon in gay history.
LibraryThing member lorax
Unfortunately, this is the only biography of Harvey Milk that I am aware of; Milk is important enough to the gay community that he deserves better. The book is worth reading to get a more complete picture of Milk than the documentary based on it (or the biopic) can provide, but both the limitations
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of when it was written (in the early 1980s, too soon after Milk's assassination to contextualize events or comment on his legacy) and Shilts' journalistic style that avoids citing sources even for general historical claims mean that it falls short of what Milk deserves. Show Less
LibraryThing member franoscar
It was fine. There can't be spoilers. It managed to be dull when you wouldn't think it could be. It isn't particularly well written & is confusing in places, I'm sure one could stop & work out what happened but it didn't seem worth it. The political analysis might be a bit naive. The People's
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Temple connection to SF politics is interesting but again not a deep analysis. There isn't much to say. It isn't very lively, but I said that. It is one of those funny cases where one reads along (I don't know if there is a newer edition with a new epilogue) and then it ends and the epilogue goes through 1982 or 1981, I guess. And no sense of AIDS coming. What a funny world we live in. Show Less
LibraryThing member Ceilidhann
4.5 stars. Oh so close to perfect.
Full of strong reporting, both of Milk's life, his time in politics and the city of San Francisco's rise to prominence in the LGBT community, Shilts does a wonderful job of balancing the man Harvey Milk and the icon he became to the movement. As much as I love Gus
Full of strong reporting, both of Milk's life, his time in politics and the city of San Francisco's rise to prominence in the LGBT community, Shilts does a wonderful job of balancing the man Harvey Milk and the icon he became to the movement. As much as I love Gus
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Van Sant's biopic (it's what spurred me to re-read this book) it doesn't quite capture how multi-faceted a man Milk was. He was media savvy, often hot headed and spontaneous and extremely passionate to the point of pig-headedness. He was also determined, caring and very funny. The movie also captures Harvey's sense of hope that things would get better, something that's particularly poignant in these days of Dan Savage's campaign. Shilts's book is a very accessible read and a must read for anyone interested in politics of LGBTQ movement. It is a very male-centric read though, something that was more evident to me upon re-reading. Show Less
LibraryThing member csweder
I didn't read the book until after I had watched the movie, and it was good to know a little bit more about the people in Milk's life--as well as the acknowledgement of some of Milk's less than admirable qualities.
It's hard to believe, but compared to the book, I think the movie ends on a high
At times Shilts' writing was confusing. He would describe a list of people and how they were related to each other (whose lover they were)...but he would switch from referring to the person by their first or last name--in mid sentence. Maybe this is a journalistic thing (? He did mention how much of journalist he was), but I found it confusing and at times terribly boring.
Overall, this is a good read, especially anyone who wants to get more information that was missing from the movie.
I think to what my friend told me after watching the movie for the first time, "It's amazing that, thirty years later, we are still fighting for the same rights." And it's true....
It's hard to believe, but compared to the book, I think the movie ends on a high
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note. (I cried both times when watching it...) But this book goes further into the aftermath of San Francisco, and the atrocities that were once forgotten for homosexuals were reinstated. At times Shilts' writing was confusing. He would describe a list of people and how they were related to each other (whose lover they were)...but he would switch from referring to the person by their first or last name--in mid sentence. Maybe this is a journalistic thing (? He did mention how much of journalist he was), but I found it confusing and at times terribly boring.
Overall, this is a good read, especially anyone who wants to get more information that was missing from the movie.
I think to what my friend told me after watching the movie for the first time, "It's amazing that, thirty years later, we are still fighting for the same rights." And it's true....
Show Less
LibraryThing member csweder
I didn't read the book until after I had watched the movie, and it was good to know a little bit more about the people in Milk's life--as well as the acknowledgement of some of Milk's less than admirable qualities.
It's hard to believe, but compared to the book, I think the movie ends on a high
At times Shilts' writing was confusing. He would describe a list of people and how they were related to each other (whose lover they were)...but he would switch from referring to the person by their first or last name--in mid sentence. Maybe this is a journalistic thing (? He did mention how much of journalist he was), but I found it confusing and at times terribly boring.
Overall, this is a good read, especially anyone who wants to get more information that was missing from the movie.
I think to what my friend told me after watching the movie for the first time, "It's amazing that, thirty years later, we are still fighting for the same rights." And it's true....
It's hard to believe, but compared to the book, I think the movie ends on a high
Show More
note. (I cried both times when watching it...) But this book goes further into the aftermath of San Francisco, and the atrocities that were once forgotten for homosexuals were reinstated. At times Shilts' writing was confusing. He would describe a list of people and how they were related to each other (whose lover they were)...but he would switch from referring to the person by their first or last name--in mid sentence. Maybe this is a journalistic thing (? He did mention how much of journalist he was), but I found it confusing and at times terribly boring.
Overall, this is a good read, especially anyone who wants to get more information that was missing from the movie.
I think to what my friend told me after watching the movie for the first time, "It's amazing that, thirty years later, we are still fighting for the same rights." And it's true....
Show Less
LibraryThing member fingerpost
Living today in a world where I have openly gay friends and relatives, and where the national debate is on same sex marriage, it was amazing to me to see how far LGBT progress has come within my lifetime. Harvey Milk is portrayed as a man obsessively devoted to his cause, which in the broadest
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definition, was gay rights. Shilts portrays Milk as a man with the potential for greatness, hampered by his own weaknesses. Nonetheless, Harvey Milk probably had the potential to become a truly great politician (meaning that as a rare complment, not as an oxymoron) had is life not been cut short so tragically. Show Less
LibraryThing member Kiddboyblue
What I was hoping for was a glimpse into the life and times of Harvey Milk, but what I ended up getting from this biography was so much more. Shilts not only shines a light on Milk, he digs deeper in the history of San Fransisco, Castro Street, the Gay Movement and the people with whom Harvey
Shilt's background as an investigative journalist really helped shape the book to be more of a journalistic approach to Harvey's life, rather than a biased or emotional one. While Shilts did know Harvey personally, he still ensured he approached this work with an eye for facts and information far more then opinions and feelings. This approach both added to and took away from the overall narrative for me. In one aspect the unbiased narrative allowed for a more honest look into Milk's life, attitude, and personality. He did not try and shine Harvey in a perfect light, painting him as a saint or un-flawed, but rather tried to allow for the reader to see Harvey as a human being who fought for a cause, but was in his own was flawed. Too often we can raise marters up onto pedastools and create a perfect image of them, that is far from the real people they were. This was not the case, and I felt like Shilt's did Milk's story justice in this way.
Where it distracted for me was in the emotional aspect. The weight and emotional toll of some of the events told in the history felt less due to the delivery of the facts. My personal connection to them somehow seemed less because there seemed little emotion in the writing of the events. I would have loved to feel more.
Even without that emotional weight, Harvey Milk's life sunk into me, and I fell in love with him even more. I fell in love with his ideals, his passion, his spirit, his drive, his politics, and his unwavering stance on gay rights. I needed to read this biography, and so does any gay man or woman, or LGBT ally, so we can know more about the man who helped push the Gay rights movement forward perhaps more than any other man or woman ever.
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surrounded himself. There was so much information packed into this biography, it ended up feeling more like a history book, which I loved!Shilt's background as an investigative journalist really helped shape the book to be more of a journalistic approach to Harvey's life, rather than a biased or emotional one. While Shilts did know Harvey personally, he still ensured he approached this work with an eye for facts and information far more then opinions and feelings. This approach both added to and took away from the overall narrative for me. In one aspect the unbiased narrative allowed for a more honest look into Milk's life, attitude, and personality. He did not try and shine Harvey in a perfect light, painting him as a saint or un-flawed, but rather tried to allow for the reader to see Harvey as a human being who fought for a cause, but was in his own was flawed. Too often we can raise marters up onto pedastools and create a perfect image of them, that is far from the real people they were. This was not the case, and I felt like Shilt's did Milk's story justice in this way.
Where it distracted for me was in the emotional aspect. The weight and emotional toll of some of the events told in the history felt less due to the delivery of the facts. My personal connection to them somehow seemed less because there seemed little emotion in the writing of the events. I would have loved to feel more.
Even without that emotional weight, Harvey Milk's life sunk into me, and I fell in love with him even more. I fell in love with his ideals, his passion, his spirit, his drive, his politics, and his unwavering stance on gay rights. I needed to read this biography, and so does any gay man or woman, or LGBT ally, so we can know more about the man who helped push the Gay rights movement forward perhaps more than any other man or woman ever.
Show Less
LibraryThing member larryerick
Where do I start in talking about this book? There is so much to discuss, but I will limit myself. First, this is nominally a biography of Harvey Milk, and it does a fine job of it, but it is also, equally, a history of the gay rights movement and a history of San Francisco politics. For those
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tasks, the author does just as well, sometimes not even mentioning Harvey Milk for entire chapters. For the first fifteen chapters, the book sets the stage for reaching what the majority of people know about Harvey Milk, namely his death and the trial of his killer. While that early part of the book is very good and well worth reading in its own right, the remaining chapters are some of the best and most interesting reporting I have ever written, being all the more vivid because of the foundation that the author laid down earlier. I highly suspect that there is detail included of which even San Franciscans of the time are not aware. The author says as much at the end of his book. There was much to surprise me about Milk and about San Francisco politics. I have been concurrently reading yet another book about the segregationist American Deep South, a period of time in which whites were seldom arrested and very rarely convicted of crimes against blacks. This book provides ample evidence that gays have suffered a similar fate. In fact, I am certain that there are those who will believe this entire book is mere fiction, inspired by, if not actually written by the devil. Rational people will know otherwise. Show Less
LibraryThing member vlodko62
I read this for Pride month. A moving, powerful story that details the contradictions of one man's life, his flaws, but especially his heroism. The book is also a portrait of the times he lived in, and I was astounded to learn about the dark corners of the world I grew up in (I was in high school
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when Harvey Milk was assassinated). I can't recommend this book more highly. Read it! Show Less
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Language
ISBN
0312019009 / 9780312019006