Harvey Milk: His Lives and Death Review

As a Maintenance Phase devotee, I have listened to the episode on “The Twinkie Defense,” supposedly used by Dan White after he assassinated San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone several times. Aubrey Gordon recommended the book Harvey Milk: His Lives and Death by Lillian Faderman, so of course I had to read it myself. I was not disappointed.

This was a brilliant biography of Milk and did not shy away from his quirks and flaws, including the challenges he had in his intimate relationships. I learned so much from this book and though it was short, felt very in-depth and showed a full portrait of Milk. I wish Milk, his politics, and his murder were more present in the public consciousness. I only knew as much as I did before reading this book because I saw the movie trailer for Milk on TV when I was a child in 2008 and looked it up. I was somewhat disappointed that it was not about the beverage, milk, of which I was a big fan at the time.