The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk

When Randy Shiltss The Mayor of Castro Street appeared in 1982, the very idea of a gay political biography was brand-new. While biographies of literary and artistic figures (both living and dead) were a popular genre, there had been no openly gay political figure who merited a full-length book. Harvey Milk–a gay political organizer who became the first openly gay city supervisor in San Francisco and was then assassinated (along with liberal mayor George Moscone)–was the obvious choice for such a book. And Randy Shilts–a young reporter who had risen up through the gay press to become the first openly gay reporter with a gay “beat” in the American mainstream press–was the perfect person to write it. While his later works such as And the Band Played On and Conduct Unbecoming were based on hard-hitting, fact-driven reportage, Shiltss tone in The Mayor of Castro Street is softer, more focused on the narrative of Harvey Milks political rise from running a small business on Castro Street, to organizing local gay men and lesbians around grass-roots issues, to winning an elected office. But in many ways this is also a forceful and engaging story of the gay rights movement in the second half of the 20th century. Thus, Shilts follows the growth of the Castro as a gay neighborhood and the growth of San Franciscos gay community from a ragtag collection of people who socialized and sexualized together into a vibrant and political force. –Michael Bronski