Books, Arts & Manners: A Brief but Deadly History

And the Band Played On, by Randy Shilts (St. Martin’s, 630 pp., $24.95)

When Randy Shilts finished And the Band Played On, he must have known the damage his account might inflict on gay politics. While Shilts blames the Reagan Administration for ignoring the deaths of thousands of homosexuals and attacks the Christian Right for seeing AIDS as God’s plague on homosexuals, his focus is the homosexual community. A gay reporter who has covered AIDS for the San Francisco Chronicle since 1982, Shilts is specially qualified to report this story, and his tale is not flattering.

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Henry Klingeman

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And the Band Played On, by Randy Shilts (St. Martin’s, 630 pp., $24.95)

When Randy Shilts finished And the Band Played On, he must have known the damage his account might inflict on gay politics. While Shilts blames the Reagan Administration for ignoring the deaths of thousands of homosexuals and attacks the Christian Right for seeing AIDS as God’s plague on homosexuals, his focus is the homosexual community. A gay reporter who has covered AIDS for the San Francisco Chronicle since 1982, Shilts is specially qualified to report this story, and his tale is not flattering.