When the Band Played On: The Life of Randy Shilts, America's Trailblazing Gay Journalist

2025 Lambda Literary Awards Finalist in Gay Memoir/Biography

Randy Shilts was the preeminent LGBTQ+ reporter of his generation.

He was the first openly gay reporter assigned to a gay beat at a mainstream paper and one of the nation’s most influential chroniclers of gay history, politics, and culture. Shilts wrote three seminal works on the community: The Mayor of Castro Street, on the life, assassination, and legacy of Harvey Milk; And the Band Played On, detailing the failure of politics as...