Let the Record Show

A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993

By: Sarah Schulman

Narrated by: Rosalyn Coleman Williams, Sarah Schulman

Length: 27 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

2021 NPR Best Book of the Year

This program includes an introduction read by the author.

One of O, the Oprah Magazine's 32 LGBTQ Books That Will Change the Literary Landscape in 2021, one of Vogue's 9 LGBTQ+ Books We're Looking Forward to This Spring, one of and Cosmopolitan's LGBTQ+ Books to Add to Your Reading List in 2021, one of The Observer's Spring Books You Don't Want to Miss, and one of Bloomberg's 14 Books to Put on Your Reading List This Spring

"A masterpiece of historical research and intellectual analysis that creates many windows into both a vanished world and the one that emerged from it, the one we live in now." (Alexander Chee)

Twenty years in the making, Sarah Schulman's Let the Record Show is the most comprehensive political history ever assembled of ACT UP and American AIDS activism.

In just six years, ACT UP, New York, a broad and unlikely coalition of activists from all races, genders, sexualities, and backgrounds, changed the world. Armed with rancor, desperation, intelligence, and creativity, it took on the AIDS crisis with an indefatigable, ingenious, and multifaceted attack on the corporations, institutions, governments, and individuals who stood in the way of AIDS treatment for all. They stormed the FDA and NIH in Washington, DC, and started needle exchange programs in New York; they took over Grand Central Terminal and fought to change the legal definition of AIDS to include women; they transformed the American insurance industry, weaponized art and advertising to push their agenda, and battled - and beat - The New York Times, the Catholic Church, and the pharmaceutical industry. Their activism, in its complex and intersectional power, transformed the lives of people with AIDS and the bigoted society that had abandoned them.

Based on more than 200 interviews with ACT UP members and rich with lessons for today’s activists, Let the Record Show is a revelatory exploration - and long-overdue reassessment - of the coalition’s inner workings, conflicts, achievements, and ultimate fracture. Schulman, one of the most revered queer writers and thinkers of her generation, explores the how and the why, examining, with her characteristic rigor and bite, how a group of desperate outcasts changed America forever, and in the process created a livable future for generations of people across the world.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2021 Sarah Schulman (P)2021 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

Buzzfeed Best Books of the Year, 2021

PEN Literary Award - Finalist, 2022

NPR Best Book of the Year, 2021

New York Magazine Best Books of the Year, 2021

Lambda Literary Award - Winner, 2022

Thank you to all involved and RIP to all who have passed

Wow — just, wow. I am now interested in exploring the associated online content.
Thank you, Sarah Schulman and anyone who was affiliated with ACT UP.

An epic and important oral history

I learned so much detailed, human history from this book. I’m working on a dissertation that uses microhistory and oral history to tell a specific historical narrative of a time and place and the activists and their work in that historical space, so this format for telling a compelling narrative was wonderful to see in action. What a huge feat by Schulman & her colleague who have been recording for well over a decade. The narration can sometimes be tricky, not by the fault of the narrator but due to the nature of her having to read out so many transcriptions of oral histories. Essentially she’s the third line in a game of telephone, so sometimes the cadence and the “ums” and “you knows” she’s reading don’t sound natural how they must have in the original oral histories. That said, I enjoyed this oral companion to the enormous book. It provides overwhelming evidence of a crucial truth of history: regular people - not saints, and certainly not perfect people - are the enactors of social justice. We are all flawed and we are all capable of powerful action in the face of power.

Legendary activists

Part history, part manual
Required reading for so many of us trying to change the world

Narration makes it difficult to enjoy

I bought this book because I found the topic so interesting and definitely forgotten in today’s society.

While I still consider this a tour du force of learning and discovery, the narration is very distracting and significantly takes away from the overall experience. As explained in another review it is the stop-start breaking up one cohesive sentence into two that is most annoying. I read that before buying the book and thought “I’m sure it’s not that bad”, but it really is. Buy the written version or none at all.

Marred by poor narration

The narrator for this important work has unfortunate difficulties in phrasing. She reads half of a sentence, phrasing it as though it is the full sentence, followed by the rest of the sentence, read as though it is a standalone complete sentence. "But I think the combination of having the litigation and the demonstration and all this ACT UP work that had gone on finally. Started to scare the government a bit."
Oh damn. I'm following along in the book to find examples, and I just saw her skip three words on a single page.
This is just really depressing. "Go meet with them" became "go meet them." Over the course of 4 or 5 pages, she skipped between one and four words per page. "sexually transmitted AIDS could manifest as Kaposi sarcoma, whereas AIDS transmitted by needles did not" -- she left out the second "AIDS."
She also mispronounces words -- "preface" became "pree face", "plenary" is "plen AIR ee".
Not good.

Excellent content & perspectives; bad narration

The book itself is marvelous, and it's great to hear so much of this history in the words of the activists who were on the front lines of ACT UP NY. The way that people of color and women were featured up front was a great corrective to the historically white male presentation of the group.

The main letdown is the narrator and her mangling of several names. She couldn't even mispronounce David Wojnarowicz's last name the same way twice. How to pronounce the names of these figures from the early plague years would have been an simple way to show a deeper level of respect.

Riveting, essential. Colossal contributions to society

I just finished 27 1/2 hours of this history, and tears run down my face. Like many who will come to this book, I have ties and personal reasons why I tore through it so voraciously, why I could not put it down. And to anyone: I tell you, this book, by an author who has written many many books! this book alone is the contribution of a lifetime to history, to society, to literature. I’m overwhelmed with gratitude to every ACT UP activist and also to Sarah and collaborators for achieving this titanic achievement of a book. History, memorial, guidebook, cautionary tale, love story, door stopper, tombstone

The narrator has a beautiful voice. I’ve read some snarky comments about occasional mispronunciations. Yes. There are occasional mispronunciations. I just spent 27 1/2 hours with her and I’m hoping I get to spend more time with her reading books. Her voice is gorgeous

Stumbling narration

Like others have written, the narrator wronged this important book by inserting pauses where none should exist, fumbling phrases, botching names, and mispronouncing dozens of words. The only reason I persevered was because I knew it would take me months to read a hard copy.

Important story RUINED by incompetent production

AWFUL TO LISTEN TO.

After almost two hours, I had to give up. The narration is distracting in the extreme. Not only does the narrator (Williams) not seem to understand how to pronounce basic English words like "preface," she also seems to be reading the text for the first time. Complex words and intricate phrasing elude her grasp. She pauses where there should not be pauses and drops words. It finally got to the point where I could no longer listen, despite this being an important work and one I really wanted to listen to. If I could give the performance zero stars, I would have. Ultimately, this is a failure of the producers. Perhaps Williams was not given the adequate amount of time to prep to do a 27 hour book?

Either way, I recommend avoiding the audio book and sticking with the bound version.

poor reading

such an important, moving, well told history. unfortunately, the reader was a distraction - her diction is poor, and she was unable to pronounce many words (the same words) over and over again - the flow was at times halting, hesitant, as if she were reading it for the first time - like it was an obstacle course she was unfamiliar with. she should have been coached and it should have been edited.