It's both a strength as well a limitation of this "mostly" memoir that Martin Duberman is a complete New Yorker. Not to criticize, but a lot of it did remind me of that classic "New Yorker" cartoon showing a Manhattanite's view of the United States - essentially the civilized world ending at the Hudson River.

My favorite parts of the book were the diary entries reflecting the time-consuming and tiring yet necessary politicking Duberman engaged with in creating and sustaining the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies - CLAGS - through the difficult years of the late 1980s and 1990s. Committee work is no fun, nor is it glamorous but it has been and will continue to be the site of many important battles for queer and other minorities.

There's an interesting wistfulness through most of the book. In part it reflects the heavy shadow of AIDS which fell across these generations. In part it also reflects the fact that as the years roll on, Duberman seems to feel increasingly alienated from the mainstream political and social LGBT movement. He reveals a general disappointment, for he clearly had much higher hopes - and greater expectations for radicalism - for the LGBT movement earlier in his life. ( )