And the Band Played On - Randy Shilts

 My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"By the time Rock Hudson's death in 1985 alerted all America to the danger of the AIDS epidemic, the disease had spread across the nation, killing thousands of people and emerging as the greatest health crisis of the 20th century. America faced a troubling question: What happened? How was this epidemic allowed to spread so far before it was taken seriously? In answering these questions, Shilts weaves the disparate threads into a coherent story, pinning down every evasion and contradiction at the highest levels of the medical, political, and media establishments.

Shilts shows that the epidemic spread wildly because the federal government put budget ahead of the nation's welfare; health authorities placed political expediency before the public health; and scientists were often more concerned with international prestige than saving lives. Against this backdrop, Shilts tells the heroic stories of individuals in science and politics, public health and the gay community, who struggled to alert the nation to the enormity of the danger it faced. And the Band Played On is both a tribute to these heroic people and a stinging indictment of the institutions that failed the nation so badly."

Reading this book a year into the pandemic is...an experience. Early on, we read this quote:

"The bitter truth was that AIDS did not just happen to America - it was allowed to happen by an array of institutions, all of which failed to perform their appropriate tasks to safeguard the public health. This failure of the system leaves a legacy of unnecessary suffering that will haunt the Western world for decades to come."

Like, hello...sound familiar? I knew this would be an emotional read going into it, but with all the parallels to present day, it was doubly so recognizing those similarities in the response to COVID. Like cool, cool, we really have learned nothing in 40 years, that's great. Of course, COVID is nowhere near as fatal as AIDS was when it appeared, so I don't want to minimize any of that experience, because I can't even comprehend how horrible that must have been. But for fuck's sake, if people could show a little bit of growth over time, that would be nice.

And the Band Played On is told in a narrative style, but it is a journalistic work. I expected it to be a little on the dry side as a result, but it was not at all. The way Shilts wove the different narratives together was intensely personal and pulled me in immediately. Initially, it was heartbreaking reading about the response of the gay community as a whole and their unwillingness to stop engaging in risky behaviors even after being warned. If the government isn't going to respond with adequate funding, at least individuals can take steps to protect themselves, and in a time where so many people refuse to wear a mask for idiotic reasons, I found myself immediately angry at those refusing to listen to warnings. Then I paused and thought about how after a lifetime of being discriminated against, bullied, and mistreated for being gay, it was pretty logical to be suspicious of this mysterious "illness" mandating they stop having sex. I would have been suspicious too, and that makes it even more heartbreaking.

"The story of these first five years of AIDS in America is a drama of national failure, played out against a backdrop of needless death."

Even before the government and news media failed American people by refusing to take AIDS seriously because of their homophobia and bigotry, we as a country had already failed them. How many lives would have been saved if the LGBTQ community hadn't been given so many reasons to be suspicious of the warnings they were given after the virus showed up? It was difficult to read about case after case being diagnosed, knowing how preventable many of those cases should have been. As difficult as it was though, I am glad to have read this history and learned more about what happened in the 1980s. If you, like me, grew up surrounded by assholes who only ever referenced AIDS as "God's curse on homosexuals," I strongly recommend you pick this up. Obviously I don't believe it was a curse from some vengeful douchebag god, but I knew almost nothing about what had actually happened. This thorough, well-researched history of the first ten years of the virus was emotional to read but incredibly informative.

(Also, fuck Reagan, he was trash.)