This account of AIDS activism reads more like "insider baseball" than the documentary of the same name (also directed by David France) that preceded it. Act Up's ability to create news coverage and its relentless behind-the-scenes maneuvering to expedite federal government approval of drugs definitely are stories worth telling but they're not very compelling at more than 500 pages. Lots of meeting descriptions. Lots.
But the passage of time unexpectedly adds an interesting dimension to the book. Anthony Fauci, identified by France as the bureaucrat who did the most to thwart Act Up's agenda, has emerged as a national hero in the wake of covid, at least among mask- and vaccine-endorsers. Many of these are gay men who, like me, rolled their eyes when Agent Orange endorsed hydroxychloroquine, an unproven therapy. Rich, that irony. It's also undeniable that male white privilege (ie Ivy League educations and Wall Street employment) both stimulated the formation of Act Up and is characteristic of most of the people so heroically profiled here.
As a gay New Yorker who avoided HIV infection, my overfamiliarity with the reputations of the usual suspects in France's account (especially Joseph Sonnabend, Larry Kramer and Peter Staley) perhaps makes me a less-than-ideal reader. If I were to recommend a book about the AIDS crisis, it would be And The Band Played On by Randy Shilts, a page-turner which puts AIDS in a much broader social context.
Still, there's no denying the emotional punch of the final meeting that France describes: the day that Merck announced the findings of its protease inhibitor trials and the critical role that Act Up played in them. If only David had hung on a year or two longer.
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