Never Silent: ACT UP and My Life in Activism

by Peter Staley, Anderson Cooper

Overview

"Never Silent is a gorgeous book . . . Peter Staley has written an electrifying primer for anyone who's thinking/worrying/wondering about how to change/save the world." —Tony Kushner, Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright of Angels in America

2022 Lambda Literary Award Finalist

The previously untold stories of the life of the leading subject in David France's How To Survive A Plague, Peter Staley, including his continuing activism

In 1987, somebody shoved a flyer into the hand of Peter Staley: massive AIDS demonstration, it announced. After four years on Wall Street as a closeted gay man, Staley was familiar with the homophobia common on trading floors. He also knew that he was not beyond the reach of HIV, having recently been diagnosed with AIDS-Related Complex.

A week after the protest, Staley found his way to a packed meeting of the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power—ACT UP—in the West Village. It would prove to be the best decision he ever made. ACT UP would change the course of AIDS, pressuring the National Institutes of Health, the FDA, and three administrations to finally respond with research that ultimately saved millions of lives.

Staley, a shrewd strategist with nerves of steel, organized some of the group's most spectacular actions, from shutting down trading on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange to putting a giant condom over the house of Senator Jesse Helms. Never Silent is the inside story of what brought Staley to ACT UP and the explosive and sometimes painful years to follow—years filled with triumph, humiliation, joy, loss, and persistence.

Never Silent is guaranteed to inspire the activist within all of us.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781641601450
Publisher:	Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	10/12/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	474,054
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Peter Staley is one of the leading AIDS and LGBTQ rights activists of his generation, playing a critical role in some of ACT UP's best-known actions, and then cofounding TAG and PrEP4All. Today Staley speaks to audiences worldwide on grassroots activism, and is the lead plaintiff against multiple pharmaceutical companies for anticompetitive practices in Staley v. Gilead. Anderson Cooper is the anchor of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360°. He lives in New York.

Table of Contents

1. Wall Street Catharsis
2. Troublemaker
3. President Staley
4. 7 Nights, 8 Men
5. Innocence Lost
6. Searching for ACT UP
7. Fundraising and Fucking
8. Unleased
9. AZT
10. “You can all now consider yourselves members of ACT UP”
11. A Feelgood Condom
12. Breakthrough
13. Survivor’s Guilt
14. Fighting Tina
15. Dallas Buyers Club
16. Fighting On
Epilogue

Editorial Reviews

"For decades, Peter Staley’s name has been synonymous with brave, determined activism on behalf of the LGBTQ community. Now, for the first time, he’s telling the story of his journey from closeted Wall Street bond trader to political powerhouse. Whether you’re looking for a front-row seat to history, a greater understanding of how change happens in America, or simply a book that’s so candid, funny, and inspiring you won’t be able to put it down, Never Silent is a timely must-read." —Hillary Rodham Clinton 

“Never Silent is a gorgeous book, or rather it’s several gorgeous books all at once. It’s the clear-eyed, at times shockingly honest, very funny, wildly sexy, and enormously moving memoir of one of the most important activists of our times. It’s an incisive, precise, and revelatory insider’s history of ACT UP and of the protean role the group played in reframing the global medical, social, and political response to AIDS. And, with his remarkable combination of radical daring, intellectual rigor and an ethically grounded pragmatism; with his capacity for joy, even in the midst of tragedy; with his breathtaking confidence that justice will come for those who fight for it, Peter Staley has written an electrifying primer for anyone who’s thinking/worrying/wondering about how to change/save the world.” —Tony Kushner, Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright of Angels in America 
 

“Never Silent is a reminder of the power of organizing to create change, a testament to fighting for what you know to be true even when you might stand alone, and a story that will inspire future activists to keep bending that moral arc toward justice. Staley’s journey within a life-saving movement is simply a must-read.” —DeRay Mckesson, cofounder of Campaign Zero and author of On the Other Side of Freedom 

“In this moving and compassionate book, one of the heroes of our recent history looks back on the brilliant brashness of his youth with a wisdom won through unexpected survival. Gay men of my generation owe ACT UP our lives; with his riveting memoir, Peter Staley offers a vital account of how activism transformed fear, desperation, and rage into power.” —Garth Greenwell, author of Cleanness and What Belongs to You 
 

“Forty years after the onset of the pandemic, Peter Staley’s book is an important addition to the growing canon of AIDS memoirs. As a veteran organizer of many protests over the decades, I particularly enjoyed learning the intricate back stories of some of ACT UP New York’s most celebrated and controversial exploits. From civil disobedience with radical activists to private dinners with the nation’s leading HIV researchers and scientists, Peter shares remarkable memories from his bold, complicated, and passionate life.” —Cleve Jones, author of When We Rise: My Life in the Movement 
 

"Staley is the best kind of guide to this history, particularly in relating the science behind AIDS treatment in common terms. Equally charming and even-handed, this is one story on the queer underdogs who roused a country from its indifference that should enter the AIDS canon." — The Washington Blade Online

"A cleareyed, hard-earned, even affectionate recollection of a valiant fight against AIDS and bigotry." — Kirkus Reviews

"Should be required reading for anyone who teaches social movements, public health history, the history of HIV and AIDS, or late 20th century American history." — Nursing Clio

From the Publisher

★ 11/01/2021

Staley, an HIV/AIDS activist, writes a powerful memoir that delves into his childhood, life as a bond trader on Wall Street as a not-yet-out gay man, and most importantly his coming out and life-defining involvement with ACT UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power). In fact, Staley's life and identity are so interwoven with ACT UP, that at times this personal account reads more like a forensic investigation into the inner workings of a living, breathing community organization. Staley effectively brings readers into the fray as he describes the coordination, planning, management, and resilience that goes into establishing and growing an activist organization such as ACT UP. The author beautifully traces his life in activism (including the personal and romantic relationships he made along the way), his taking on greater responsibilities within ACT UP, and his failures, in an honest and touching way. This memoir cements Staley as a bulwark in the fight for HIV/AIDS patients' rights and shows the true power of a life lived through activism. The book includes a several personal photographs as well as a foreword by Anderson Cooper. VERDICT An important and necessary addition to public and academic institutions looking to update their LGBTQ+ and/or activism collections.—Siobhan Egan, Barrington P.L., RI

Library Journal

2021-08-17
The dramatic life story of an indispensable AIDS activist.

Despite the fact that the provocative AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power is a radically democratic organization, Staley (b. 1961) was, as he acknowledges, one of its “poster boys,” due largely to his mediagenic talents. In those early days, ACT UP, which did so much to force Republican administrations and the National Institutes of Health to fund research to fight HIV, was barbed, relentless, and righteously angry. The organization quickly garnered national, even global, attention for its innovative actions—e.g., infiltrating the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in 1989 and unfurling a banner urging the traders to “Sell Wellcome,” the pharmaceutical company making a hefty profit from AIDS patients; or the 1989 demonstration against the Catholic Church’s “anti-condom, gay-bashing, AIDS-spreading policies” during Mass inside St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. Staley was a plucky showman, as evidenced by his creation of the memorable stunt of wrapping virulently anti-gay Sen. Jesse Helms’ house in a condom. One incident in the author’s childhood demonstrates that his showmanship was born early: When he was 5, his father taught him how to start the family’s lawn mower, and he proceeded to start all the lawn mowers on his street, “until a chorus of mowers echoed down the block.” His memoir is a gripping, moving text that deserves a wide readership, especially now that it’s become clear that ACT UP’s innovations have influenced current-day movements for social justice in America. Staley’s account arrives close on the heels of Sarah Schulman’s Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993, which pointedly takes the spotlight off prominent White gay members of ACT UP like Staley and Larry Kramer and places it on lesser-known activists. Staley acknowledges his relative privilege but also drives home the point that his activism was vital.

A cleareyed, hard-earned, even affectionate recollection of a valiant fight against AIDS and bigotry.

Kirkus Reviews