A review by bluenicorn
Hold Tight Gently: Michael Callen, Essex Hemphill, and the Battlefield of AIDS by Martin Duberman

2.0

I struggled with this book. It's a topic near and dear my heart, and I'm a big fan of the work of Essex Hemphill. But... I felt like the author was given access to these two men's papers and then tried to connect dots where there weren't any. Michael Callen and Essex Hemphill were very, very different from each other- and in the way they were involved with/connected to the AIDS "movement." That alone could have provided a good basis for contrast in the book. But I didn't feel like the author really made those points of contrast. Furthermore, there was a chapter where almost every paragraph started with a long dash "--", and I don't know if that was just poor editing or a weird literary choice. But I did not feel like the transitions between points (when I could determine what those salient points were) were very fluid, either. There wasn't really any new information provided, either- kind of the same information about ACT UP and the GMHC, etc. There were also a few personal interjections of the author that felt out of place, conversational, and not related to the book.