Larry Kramer with Bill Goldstein: The American People, Volume 2 | 2020-01-07 | LIVE from NYPL

The playwright, novelist, and LGBTQ activist completes his radical reimagining of the country’s history in a new volume. In 2015 Larry Kramer presented the first installment of his opus forty years in the making. The American People, Volume 1: Search for My Heart was a devastating satire that reimagined American history from John Wilkes Booth to Joseph McCarthy. He completes that history in Volume 2: The Brutality of Fact, coloring in scenes of everything from brothels in 1950s Washington, D.C. to the activism of the 1980s and beyond. The Brutality of Fact tells the story of the government’s neglect of an intensifying plague, and the activists who set out to shock the nation’s conscience. Kramer was a founding member of Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) and ACT Up New York. The records of both organizations are held at The New York Public Library. He is joined in conversation by Cullman Fellow and author of The World Broke in Two, Bill Goldstein, who is currently researching a biography on Kramer at the Library.