Harvey Milk, Lillian Faderman
Harvey Milk, Lillian Faderman
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Harvey Milk
His Lives and Death

Author: Lillian Faderman

Narrator: Joel Froomkin

Unabridged: 7 hr 54 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/22/2018


Synopsis

Harvey Milk—eloquent, charismatic, and a smart-aleck—was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977, but he had not even served a full year in office when he was shot by a homophobic fellow supervisor. Milk's assassination at the age of forty-eight made him the most famous gay man in modern history; twenty years later Time magazine included him on its list of the hundred most influential individuals of the twentieth century.

Before finding his calling as a liberal politician, however, Harvey variously tried being a schoolteacher, a securities analyst on Wall Street, a supporter of Barry Goldwater, a Broadway theater assistant, a bead-wearing hippie, the operator of a camera store and organizer of the business community in San Francisco's Castro District. He rejected Judaism as a religion, but he was deeply influenced by the cultural values of his Jewish upbringing and his understanding of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. His early influences and his many personal and professional experiences finally came together when he decided to run for elective office as the forceful champion of gays, racial minorities, women, working people, the disabled, and senior citizens. In his last five years, he focused all of his tremendous energy on becoming a successful public figure.

About Lillian Faderman

Lillian Faderman is an internationally known scholar of lesbian history and literature, as well as ethnic history and literature. Among her many honors are six Lambda Literary Awards, two American Library Association Awards, and several lifetime achievement awards for scholarship. She is the author of the New York Times Notable Books Surpassing the Love of Men and Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Janet on September 04, 2021

When I first listened to the audiobook of Harvey Milk: His Lives and Death by Lillian Faderman published by Yale University Press in 2018, I thought I knew about Harvey Milk and would just be getting a refresher, something I could pass along. Harvey Milk is the gay leader who was assassinated in 197......more

Goodreads review by Ava on February 05, 2023

I read this book a long time ago, but I will never forget it. Very detailed, and interesting to read about Milk’s intersectional identity, being that he was both gay and Jewish. Also interesting to read about his life and political activism in the Castro district of SF. Harvey Milk seems like he was......more

Goodreads review by Jill on May 31, 2018

Lillian Faderman has written a biography, "Harvey Milk: His Lives and Death", which is part of the "Jewish Lives" series. The book does add a bit more about Milk's Jewish identity than other biographies might contain, but it is a conventionally written biography. Harvey Milk seemed almost like a com......more

Goodreads review by John on June 27, 2022

The author never tries to make Milk a saint and is quite willing to point out Milk’s broken love life, his sometimes overweening ambition, and the internecine conflict within the gay community. Personally, I was in junior high in the Bay Area when Milk was murdered along with Mayor Moscone. Coming as......more

Goodreads review by Mandy on August 24, 2018

A well-researched and detailed biography of a complex man, engaging, accessible and balanced. I enjoyed the first half more than the second, as some of Milk’s later political exploits weren’t as interesting for me as his earlier and more personal life, but overall I found this an excellent biography......more