I was born in 1981. That year some of the earliest cases of what would come to be known as AIDS were diagnosed, although the disease had been present in the United States since the late 1970s. I can remember the fear of AIDS that floated around while I was in elementary school. There were stories about whether or not you could get AIDS from sharing a drinking fountain. I remember the news breaking about Ryan White, a hemophiliac who contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion. Reading Randy Shilts’s monumental work, And the Band Played On, brings so much back to life. Looking back over forty years later, this book not only recalls the fear and confusion and anger of the early years of the AIDS epidemic, it also brings back the years when it seemed like the progress of the LGBTQ+ rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s would be lost. Shilts also revivifies (at least on the pages of the book) some of the lives that were lost to disease and homophobia and bureaucratic inertia. This book is absolutely incredible...

Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type.