RaveThe Atlantic... outstanding ... In writing Let the Record Show, published earlier this year, Schulman has orchestrated a people’s history of ACT UP New York. Her voice and those of a chorus of activists cohere in the book, which draws both on her experience as a veteran of the political-action group and from lengthy interviews she conducted with nearly 200 other members. The result is an expansive portrait of the people, principles, and campaigns that made ACT UP the most formidable political organization to emerge from the AIDS crisis ... The book is a significant departure both from the popular perception of ACT UP as an exclusively white, gay, male organization, and from other well-known representations of the group ... Schulman writes as a witness to and a survivor of a catastrophe, clear-eyed and committed to remembering the dead ... serves as both history and handbook of how a small coalition can achieve fundamental political change ... not an easy read, given that it tells a story of incalculable suffering and loss; and yet it’s an invigorating work, for it also documents uncommon courage and defiance. Schulman has written a necessary book that expands our vision of AIDS activism and demands us to remember the living and the dead who made ACT UP an indispensable political and cultural force.
