The Mayor of Castro Street

I would give this book 3.5 stars if I could.

It's not that I didn't like it. In fact, I raved about it, for a while. But the middle became very long, tedious, and rife with domestic political struggles. (I suppose, as an international relations major, I'm already predisposed to being uninterested in the local political arena.)

I much preferred the beginning third of the book, and then the last 50 pages or so. It's made me curious to see what has occurred in San Francisco since Harvey Milk's assassination, and how Castro became the district it is today.

In this book Randy Shilts tells the story of Harvey Milk and his path from a closeted gay man with conservative values (he supported Goldwater) who stumbled through a good part of his life without direction until he moved to San Francisco and found his calling in advocating for gay equality and striving toward his vision of a a time and place where gays and straights could coexist peacefully. Though most widely known for his gay advocacy he was a populist who, among other things, pushed for district elections of supervisors in an effort to wrest political power away from the downtown business interests and put it back in the hands of the city neighborhoods.
As a grassroots populist Harvey Milk's improbable rise in city politics put him at odds with the moderate gay politicos who preferred working within the system and ultimately the cronyism of the existing political machine. Ironically, or perhaps inevitably, once the gay movement gained some power and achieved a measure of respectability the movers and shakers absorbed the methods of traditional politics and became insiders themselves.
Many familiar names have cameo appearances: Dianne Feinstein, Jerry Brown, Jimmy Carter, Anita Bryant, Art Agnos, Jim Jones, and of course, Dan White, the man who shot Mayor George Moscone and Milk. There are a number of possible motives that may have led Dan White to kill Moscone and Milk; the most unlikely of which was his alleged manic depression exacerbated by Twinkies and Coke.
The book is a well written fascinating account of Milk, the trajectory of his life, and the events in San Francisco during his short time there.