Telling the Randy Shilts story
‘When the Band Played On’By Michael G. Leec.2025, Chicago Review Press$30/282 pages You spent most of your early career playing second fiddle.
But now you’ve got the baton, and a story to tell that people aren’t going to want to hear, though it’s essential that they face the music.
They must know what’s happening. As in the new book “When the Band Played On” by Michael G. Lee, this time, it’s personal.
Born in 1951 in small-town Iowa, Randy Shilts was his alcoholic, abusive mother’s third of six sons. Frustrated, drunk, she reportedly beat Shilts almost daily when he was young; she also called him a “sissy,” which “seemed to follow Randy everywhere.” Perhaps because of the abuse, Shilts had to “teach himself social graces,” developing “adultlike impassiveness” and “biting sarcasm,” traits that featured strongly as he matured and became a writer.
