"I understand but can''t quite accept that this book is about 700 pages long -- not when I tore through it in a day; still now, while fact-checking this review, I can scarcely skim it without being swallowed back into the testimonies . Let the Record Show doesn''t seek to memorialize history but to ransack it, to seize what we might need . This is not reverent, definitive history. This is a tactician''s bible." -- Parul Sehgal, The New York Times "An outstanding chronicle . an expansive portrait of the people, principles, and campaigns that made ACT UP the most formidable political organization to emerge from the AIDS crisis . Schulman writes as a witness to and a survivor of a catastrophe, clear-eyed and committed to remembering the dead . Let the Record Show serves as both history and handbook of how a small coalition can achieve fundamental political change .
an invigorating work." -- Dagmawi Woubshet, The Atlantic "A masterpiece tome: part sociology, part oral history, part memoir, part call to arms . Medical inequity continues not only with Covid but also with H.I.V./AIDS still, and it will repeat until we manage to learn from the past -- about survival, and about the fight. Here is a primer, a compendium of what one group learned and struggled with and accomplished. Here is a book to start a mighty shelf.
" -- Rebecca Makkai, The New York Times Book Review "An in-depth and fully realized account . a text that offers younger queer activists a rare study of their own history." -- Emma Specter, Vogue " Let the Record Show is invaluable as both an archive and a blueprint for contemporary organizers of all stripes." -- Sascha Cohen, NPR "A stunning achievement . The expanse and generosity given in Let the Record Show -- the integrity of giving people a platform to tell their own story and to showing the messiness and complexity of the truth -- reflects the commitment not only of Schulman but of the hundreds of people in the ACT UP movement." -- Marcie Bianco, The Advocate "Monumental . Schulman doesn''t replace one set of heroes with another; rather, she destroys the idea of singular heroes at all. This is a political choice that creates a more honest representation of ACT UP .
The most salient thread we can draw from Let the Record Show is an understanding of how mass movements can succeed and fail, all at the same time, depending on which part of the ''mass'' you''re in." -- Hugh Ryan, Boston Review "A necessarily expansive and bombastic corrective of modern history . Let the Record Show is as righteous and revelatory as its subject matter." -- Hillary Kelly, Vulture " Let the Record Show is a corrective intervention in AIDS historiography, attempting to revise the popular understanding of ACT UP to make it both more democratic and more accurate . [ Let the Record Show ] paints a picture of activists not as martyrs, but as real people, living out the full spectrums of their emotional lives while also trying to meet the demands of history." -- Moira Donegan, Bookforum "Schulman paints an honest portrait of the complexities of coalitional politics, adding nuance and depth to an often-flattened period of history. The result is both an engrossing tribute to the past and a crucial handbook for activists who hope to leave their own lasting mark on the future." -- Daniel Spielberger, them.
"Remarkable . [Schulman''s] book is made up of testimony, exposition and analysis, not blended but artfully layered . [a] rich and amazing book." -- Adam Mars-Jones, London Review of Books "From the human perspective, it''s simply satisfying to consume Schulman''s fulsome demonstration that ACT UP was not the work of heroic straights or the clean-cut and mostly white men whose names are now synonymous with the group, such as Larry Kramer, but in fact always relied on the many people of color, incarcerated people, women, and drug users who devoted their labor . this work of adapted oral history is a mixture of creative froth and leaden grief . Gradually, Schulman corrects a view on history that''s been distorted by the profit motive." -- Jo Livingstone, The New Republic "The remarkable, timely capstone to [Schulman''s] decades-long labor of documenting the improbable miracle that was and is ACT UP . Without polemic or resentment, the book is explicit in its corrective intent .
a powerful document of a harrowing and enduring tragedy, and of the relentless determination to act up, fight back, and fight AIDS." -- FT, 4Columns "A resounding rebuttal to exclusionary versions of AIDS history . Not merely a matter of representation, Schulman''s recontextualization serves as an intervention in the political analysis of ACT UP." -- Joshua Gutterman Tranen, The Baffler "Sarah Schulman''s vital survey of a terrifying time reminds us that queer people have long known a thing or two about living through a devastating plague." -- Keely Weiss, Harper''s Bazaar " Schulman approaches her political history with a novelist''s understanding of the complexities of character, action, and consequence . Let the Record Show preserves the spirit of ACT UP''s single statement of unity and purpose . [Schulman] is one of our most formidable contemporary intellectuals and an essential recorder of queer and activist histories." -- Kelly Roberts, Hazlitt "The way I feel about Sarah Schulman''s book LET THE RECORD SHOW mirrors how I felt the first time I read THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS by Isabel Wilkerson: deeply grateful for the author''s work, stunned at the pervasive erasure we endure AND desperate to put a copy in everyone''s hands.
" -- Saeed Jones, author of How We Fight for Our Lives "Even though Let the Record Show is somewhere close to 800 pages, you''ll read it urgently. The fight for the public''s attention still feels alive in the way Schulman writes. This is a book that looks backwards and forwards at once." -- Emily Shapiro, Lambda Literary "Meticulously, thoughtfully, and lovingly compiled . Let the Record Show feels like the peak of [Schulman''s] achievement, a standard for how this history should be presented . Let the Record Show is a sprawling encyclopedia on art and action, humming with so much vitality that the book practically breathes." -- Conor Williams, Art in America "[ Let the Record Show ] comes to us when we most need it. It offers an archive of silenced voices; a record of bravery and struggle; and even perhaps a handbook for grassroots organizing and protest in a time of racial and medical injustice.
Unconsciously conditioned, as we are, to the narrative as much as the political comforts of survival--that is, of closure-- Let the Record Show may well be the book that we don''t want, but that we very much need." -- Travis Alexander, PopMatters "A history of AIDS activism that is both more inclusive and complicated than previously told . [Schulman''s] project is therefore as much an addition to the historical record as it is a necessary ethical revision." -- Natalie Adler, Lux Magazine "[Schulman''s] work has taught me how to have a point of view, how to have a radical political analysis that is matter-of-fact, and how to make big arguments that are specific in scope . Schulman gives us a framework for cultural and political change outside of consolidated corporate cultural and political power." -- Alicia Kennedy, "From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy" "Iconic and epic are such hackneyed words, that I blush to write them. But there''s no other way to describe Sarah Schulman''s new book . a mesmerizing history.
You may gulp it down in one sitting or become immersed when you open up the book to a random chapter. But, whether you''re an historian, an LGBTQ person who lived through the first generation of AIDS, a queer teen who''s never heard of ACT UP or a straight ally, you won''t be able to put it down." -- Kathi Wolfe, Washington Blade "[ Let the Record Show ] feels immersive in ways that are often unavailable to other historical works that try to perform objectivity or maintain a chronological narrative structure . a gift to my generation, offering wisdom about where we come from that could save us from wasted time trying to reinvent the wheel without context." -- Eve Ettinger, Triangle House "[Schulman] movingly evokes what the group meant personally in the lives of thousands who refused to be "bystanders" in the face of the AIDS catastrophe . her goal in highlighting the group''s unprecedented grassroots achievements as well as its weaknesses is part of a larger mission to inform social change efforts today, whether on healthcare access or transgender rights, systemic racism or police reform." -- Paul Schindler, Gay City News "Every page is not only riveting but necessary . At once a choral work and a practical guide, as well as a clear-eyed political history and indictment of who failed the AIDS crisis and why.
It is a must-read." -- Sarah Neilson, Shondaland "A deeply generous platform for nearly every ACT UP member''s personal story, motives, and recollections to be told in one place, adding up to an enthralling mosaic of biography, collaboration, and, often, conflict.".