I for the life of my don't remember requesting Never Silent: ACT UP And My Life in Activism by Peter Staley, but it showed up, so I read it. And I spent a lot of my time reading it trying to figure out how the heck to review it. Bear with me here.
For those who don't know, Staley got involved with the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP) in NYC fairly early on, after having worked as an investment banker who happened to be gay and have HIV. (To qualify this, his diagnosis was originally AIDS Related Complex [ARC], a diagnosis that no longer exists, and even if he did at a few points hit what has since become the t4 levels that qualifies for a diagnosis of AIDS, the diagnostic criteria was not there during the periods his cells were under the threshold.) He got involved, and got semi famous.
Here, he chronicles his highs and lows in ACT UP, TAG, AIDSmeds.com, and more recent forays into COVID.
This includes more than a little name dropping, dissections of long ago fights, Crystal Meth addiction, surviving while others were dying and the guilt that comes with it...
Rather than rehash this, let me just try to break down the good and the bad with the narrative as presented.
THE GOOD:
30ish years since the start of where the narrative picks up, he's got a lot of perspective, so the immediacy of things that came out during the era is not as present. (This could also be listed as bad.)
His descriptions of actions taken is vivid and compelling, as we hear about the ACT UP event where they interrupted the New York Stock Exchange to protest price gouging on AZT ($10,000 a year at the outset), sit ins at companies to get better trials for people who might benefit from the trial medications, inflating a condom on Jesse Helms's house...
His memories of people in the movement, and the tribute he pays to them, even if he disagreed with them. No man is an island, and he was a visible part with a lot of support.
His honesty in discussing addiction, STDs, and survivor guilt. All of these are things that don't often get brought into the light, and it's refreshing to see someone examine it from the eyes of experience.
His chapter concerning consulting on Dallas Buyers Club was eye opening.
THE BAD:
Unlike Cleve Jones's memoir, we don't get a couple chapters of romance with a hairy Greek man; we do get a chapter on Staley's coming of age with 8 men in 7 days in London. I understand why it's here; despite his other faults, he's fairly libertine with his attitudes towards sex... it just felt a bit like braggadocio.
I couldn't help but feel that his recaps of the internecine fighting that lead to him leaving ACT UP was one sided. I realize this is autobiography, and therefore a chance to justify his actions, but I keep wondering what the logic the opposition using in those fights. I mean, frankly, I likely would have been on his side in the situation, as his Inside-Outside strategy is more in line with the activism I joined in 1994, but I can't help but feel that we're missing half the discussion. And what little is presented of the other side, I can see why people would be resentful of his actions.
While he does sort of acknowledge his own privilege as a white man from the Upper Class, there's a hell of a lot of Classist rhetoric thrown in unconsciously.) Seriously, at one point, after going on about going on disability after leaving the banking world, and having no real employment, he talks about withdrawing a larger amount than I make in a month from his bank to cover an impromptu recon trip. When he discusses how more well off white men got better treatment faster, there's a bit of acknowledgement, but not much.
Based on his age, he's basically at the tail end of the Boomer Generation, and it shows quite a bit.
I was kind of sad he really didn't get into actions that actually made the news in my small hometown, like the Die-In at St. Patrick's Cathedral.
His complete erasure of Gen X when discussing the "Second Great Silence" (the first being Reagan, the second being the dying down of publicity after the 3 drug cocktail became the norm, making most viral loads undetectable and mostly affordable) and the advent of PrEP (Truvada, or PreExposure Prophylaxis.) He spends some time praising millennial activists, while completely ignoring any and all things Generation X did and still does. To be fair, this is Boomer ideology at its ugliest, and thus, MEH.
While I appreciate his addiction and recovery didn't dominate the entire narrative, 10 years of addiction and recovery takes up 2 pages and doesn't tie in to the narrative beyond that.
FINAL TAKE:
Whether or not he's taking all the credit for what ACT UP accomplished and whether those accomplishments could be credited to ACT UP to begin with are always going to be up for debate. However, he does a good job on shedding some light on events that quite a few of us did not really get exposed to in the time period discussed.
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