Suggested reading from Chicago Review Press
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Published Jun 2016
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Published Oct 2022
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Published Sep 2022
Trade Paper
Published Apr 2018
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Published Sep 2012
Revealing the backstage strategies and negotiations that led to the 2010 repeal of the Pentagon’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy, this history offers a detailed, no-holds-barred account of the controversial policy from an insider’s perspective. In early 2006, the founder of the largest organization for gay and lesbian servicemembers—Servicemembers United—along with fellow former military members who had also been discharged under the DADT policy, toured the United States, speaking about the repeal campaign at American Legion posts, on radio talk shows, and at press conferences across the South and both coasts. Surprised at the mostly positive reception and momentum for the repeal that the tour received, Servicemembers United was suddenly propelled to the forefront of DADT’s repeal fight. From the unique perspective of the only person with a central role on every front in the war against DADT, this examination exposes how various Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) organizations, Congress, and the White House often worked at cross purposes, telling the public they were doing one thing while advocating other strategies behind closed doors.
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Published Oct 2015
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Published May 2018
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Published Oct 2021
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Published Jun 2019
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Published Mar 2023
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Published Jun 2018
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Published May 2021
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Published Jun 2023
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Published Jun 2023
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Estimated Release Date Oct 2024
Randy Shilts was the preeminent LGBTQ+ reporter of his generation.
He was the first openly gay reporter assigned to a gay beat at a mainstream paper and one of the nation’s most influential chroniclers of gay history, politics, and culture. Shilts wrote three seminal works on the community: The Mayor of Castro Street, on the life, assassination, and legacy of Harvey Milk; And the Band Played On, detailing the failure of politics as usual during the early AIDS epidemic; and Conduct Unbecoming, a history of the US military’s mistreatment of LGBTQ servicemembers.
Yet the intimate life story of Randy Shilts has been left unwritten. When the Band Played On tells that story, recognizing his legacy as a trailblazing figure in gay activism, journalism, and public policy.
Author Michael G. Lee conducted interviews with Shilts’s family, friends, college professors, colleagues, informants, lovers, and critics. The resulting narrative tells the tale of a singularly gifted voice, a talented yet insecure young man whose coming of age became intricately linked to the historic peaks and devastating perils of modern gay liberation.
When the Band Played On is the authoritative account of Randy Shilts’s trailblazing life, as well as his legacy of shaping the history-making events he covered.