GLR September-October 2024

ACT UP New York, 1987–1993. This monumental project shares the accounts of 140 respondents in interviews con ducted over eighteen years in an effort to produce an authentic record of one of the 20th century’s great social movements. Of the enthusiastic reception

tails. The writer discloses important biographical material about the current state of her health and about the influ ence of such literary legends as Audre Lorde and Grace Paley. A particular delight is a short piece called “Book Brahmin: Sarah Schulman,” in which she responds to a series of short questions about her

that greeted this book, Schulman remarks: “A lot of the things I say in Let the Record Show are things I’ve been saying for decades. It’s about men, so it gets a better publisher, it gets more attention.” To the suggestion that the book is a “counternarrative” to David France’s film, Schulman replies: “It’s not only that. It’s part of a larger problem. For example, when I wrote an article for T magazine, the gay male editor changed ‘ACT UP’ to ‘Larry Kramer’s ACT UP.’ It’s an American thing. Now we have the mythologizing of Anthony Fauci— there’s always a white man who’s

reading. That all the chapters are relatively short belies the depth of their analysis of contempo rary culture. While Schulman decries what she calls “theoryism”—interpreting circum stances to fit a social theory—she herself is theoretically informed, applying Jasbir K. Puar’s concept of “homonationalism” to our current national and political trends, for ex ample. Her observations also address the more mundane preoccupations of contem porary society. One can find a defense of Facebook and a sharp critique of Patti Smith’s memoir JustKids. If I have any objection to this collection, it is that it stops in 2021. Will Brantley, who has pro

going to save everybody.” (Coin cidentally, I am writing this re view on the publication date of Fauci’s memoir OnCall . Every time I see a mainstream media interview lionizing him, I think of Sarah Schulman.) Between these two bookends,

vided an informative chronology and thorough index, has per formed an important service in collecting Sarah Schulman’s oral history in this book. While one may not always agree with her analyses, Schulman remains one of the most

Conversations with Sarah Schulman offers a wide range of opinions and biographical de

provocative thinkers of our time.

The Downside of Upward Mobility

E DOUARD LOUIS’ memoir Changer: Méthode , published in France in 2021, has recently been translated into English by John Lambert under the title Change . The work functions as a sequel to The End of Eddy , Louis’ inaugural autobiographical novel, which I reviewed in these pages in 2017 (Sept.-Oct. issue). At that time, I made a connection between the French

as a child in a depressed town in northern France, Change shifts the focus to his tri als and tribulations as he moves into a higher socioeconomic class thanks in part to his educational journey, which takes him to Amiens and eventually to the prestigious École Normal Supérieure in Paris. After two short prologues, three main sections— “Elena,” “Didier,” and “Short letters for a long farewell”—present fictional conver sations with important characters who support him during his transformative journey. Just as the title implies, the main subject of the book is the metamorphosis undertaken by Eddy Bellegueule as he escapes his working-class background to become a member of the bour geoisie, a change accompanied by a more acute sense of his own sexuality as a gay man. The French title emphasizes the act of change as deliberate, the word méthode suggesting a “how-to” guide for self-improvement. The painful stages of this all-en compassing transformation are described in great detail. It is not only physical—Louis changes the way he laughs, his clothes, his crooked teeth—but also psychological. In order to join the upper classes, Louis has to abandon his way of being in

E DUARDO F EBLES

CHANGE by Édouard Louis Translated by John Lambert Farrar, Straus & Giroux 256 pages, $27.

presidential election of that year, the rise of the extremist right wing National Front party headed by Marine Le Pen, and the homophobic, xenophobic, and Islamophobic population de picted in the memoir. Since then, the presidential election of 2022 pitted the same two candidates against each other (sound familiar?) with Emmanuel Macron as the eventual winner. Sim ilarly, Louis’ new installment stages some of the problems al ready depicted in The End of Eddy , giving the reader a serious dose of déjà vu. That said, whereas the first book concentrated on Louis’ life Eduardo Febles is a professor of French literature in the Dept. of Mod ern Languages at Simmons University. September–October 2024

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