Summary
Summary
This sweeping memoir tells the life story of longtime LGBTQ and AIDS activist Cleve Jones in a profoundly moving account from sexually liberated 1970s San Francisco, through the AIDS crisis, and up to his involvement with the marriage equality battle.
Born in 1954, Cleve Jones was among the last generation of gay Americans who grew up wondering if there were others out there like himself. There were. Like thousands of other young people, Jones, nearly penniless, was drawn in the early 1970s to San Francisco, a city electrified by progressive politics and sexual freedom.
Jones found community--in the hotel rooms and ramshackle apartments shared by other young adventurers, in the city's bathhouses and gay bars like The Stud, and in the burgeoning gay district, the Castro, where a New York transplant named Harvey Milk set up a camera shop, began shouting through his bullhorn, and soon became the nation's most outspoken gay elected official. With Milk's encouragement, Jones dove into politics and found his calling in "the movement." When Milk was killed by an assassin's bullet in 1978, Jones took up his mentor's progressive mantle--only to see the arrival of AIDS transform his life once again.
By turns tender and uproarious, When We Rise is Jones' account of his remarkable life. He chronicles the heartbreak of losing countless friends to AIDS, which very nearly killed him, too; his co-founding of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation during the terrifying early years of the epidemic; his conception of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, the largest community art project in history; the bewitching story of 1970s San Francisco and the magnetic spell it cast for thousands of young gay people and other misfits; and the harrowing, sexy, and sometimes hilarious stories of Cleve's passionate relationships with friends and lovers during an era defined by both unprecedented freedom and and violence alike.
When We Rise is not only the story of a hero to the LQBTQ community, but the vibrantly voice memoir of a full and transformative American life.
Lambda Literary Award Winner
The partial inspiration for the ABC television mini-series!
"You could read Cleve Jones's book because you should know about the struggle for gay, lesbian, and transgender rights from one of its key participants--maybe heroes--but really, you should read it for pleasure and joy."--Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me
Author Notes
Cleve Jones' career as an activist began in San Francisco in 1970s where he befriended pioneer gay rights leader Harvey Milk. After Milk's death, Jones co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and conceived the idea of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, which memorializes over 85,000 Americans who have died from AIDS. He lives in San Francisco and works as a labor activist.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Jones, an activist and grassroots organizer, weaves together his own coming-of-age story and the broader story of the struggle for LGBTQ rights and safety in America. Much of the story is rooted in San Francisco in the 1970s and '80s, and Jones writes powerfully about the rise of Harvey Milk, who became San Francisco's first openly gay elected official in 1977. This is an ode San Francisco during a bygone era when the city was a gay sanctuary and crucible for activism. Jones also details the genesis and execution of the stunningly elegiac Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt and how that labor of collective love parlayed a feeling of loss into hope for resilience. Over the course of the book, readers experience Jones's own personal journey from closeted young man contemplating suicide to a noted player in the history of the gay rights movement who was portrayed by Emile Hirsch in the movie Milk in 2008. The book's many rose-colored vignettes, coupled with Jones's impressive accomplishments as an activist, serve as an inspiring reminder that one can go from "daydreaming about sex and revolution" to making them reality. Agent: Robert Guinsler, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Dec.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* LGBTQ activist Jones, the father of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, imbues his enlightening memoir with a powerful sense of history in the making. From his youth in the Arizona desert an apt metaphor for the sexually confused and isolated young man to his discovery that he did indeed have a place in the world to his national activism, his story builds to a crescendo of LGBTQ-rights breakthroughs. Though these culminated in the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage, the road was never smooth as Jones and the LGBTQ community took small steps, bigger steps, and missteps based upon their faith that they were entitled to the same rights and freedoms as every other American. En route to this seismic shift in American culture and politics, there were painful setbacks. Jones is unsparing in his account of the 1978 assassination of San Francisco supervisor and LGBTQ activist Harvey Milk and the terrible toll of the catastrophic AIDS epidemic, including discovery of his own HIV infection. Jones' powerful memoir is a primary source for ABC's forthcoming miniseries, also titled When We Rise, starring Guy Pearce as Jones. Sure to be requested.--Chavez, Donna Copyright 2016 Booklist
Library Journal Review
In this memoir, notable AIDS and -LGBTQ activist Jones (coauthor, Stitching a Revolution: The Making of an Activist) chronicles his journey of activism and involvement in the fight for equality within the LGBTQ community. After recounting the depression he suffered as a child owing to a sense of isolation and feelings of loneliness, Jones (b. 1954) explains how he eventually came out to his family and moved to San Francisco. There, he connected with other gay men and became an advocate. The author describes his close friendship with San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, and how Milk encouraged him to lead campaigns for equal rights. Tragically, Jones expresses the painful loss he experienced after Milk's murder in 1978. Also detailed is the devastation of the AIDS epidemic and Jones's role in founding the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the creation of the AIDS Memorial Quilt. While missing the personal perspective Jones presents, Lillian Faderman's The Gay Revolution provides an excellent overview of the LGBTQ movement. VERDICT For those interested in understanding the history of the LGBTQ quest for social justice in America, this work will resonate.-Mary Jennings, Camano Island Lib., WA © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.