The Mayor of Castro Street - by Randy Shilts (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

The Mayor of Castro Street is Shilts's acclaimed story of Harvey Milk, the man whose personal life, public career, and tragic assassination mirrored the dramatic and unprecedented emergence of the gay community in America during the 1970s.

Known as "The Mayor of Castro Street" even before he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Harvey Milk's personal and political life is a story full of personal tragedies and political intrigues, assassinations at City Hall, massive riots in the streets, the miscarriage of justice, and the consolidation of gay power and gay hope.

The Mayor of Castro Street is a story of personal tragedies and political intrigues, assassination in City Hall and massive riots in the streets, the miscarriage of justice and the consolidation of gay power and gay hope.

Harvey Milk has been the subject of numerous books and movies, including the Academy Award-winning 1984 documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk. His life is also the basis of a 2008 major motion picture, Milk, starring Sean Penn.

Review Quotes

"A no-holds-barred character study and a history of the local gay movement . . . An investigative piece on the mechanics of big-city government in all its expedient, back-biting splendor." --The Washington Post

"A remarkable work [of] biography, social history, and political machination . . . Exceptional." --The Los Angeles Times

About the Author

Randy Shilts was one of the first openly gay journalists hired at a major newspaper and worked for the San Francisco Chronicle for thirteen years. He died of AIDS in 1994 at his home in the Sonoma County redwoods in California. He was the author of several groundbreaking bestsellers, including And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic (1987) and Conduct Unbecoming: Lesbians and Gays in the U.S. Military (1993).