Jacksonville Public Library

Double play : the San Francisco City Hall killings, Mike Weiss

eng

no index present

non fiction

Double play : the San Francisco City Hall killings

10123337

Mike Weiss

The city of San Francisco and, to a lesser extent, the nation were throttled in November 1978 when a former city supervisor named Dan White opened fire and killed Mayor George Moscone and city supervisor Harvey Milk. Author Mike Weiss' book is one of the few that ticks down the seconds to the double killing and, though no one knew it at the time, to a social uprising that left much of the city in ruin. That Harvey Milk was the city's first openly gay official sparked a fury in the city's dense homosexual population and ignited speculation that White's motive, in part, was his acknowledged anti-gay position. For many, that two men were gunned down for such a hallow reason was perhaps only a small part of the complete story, and Weiss' book mercifully does not blame White's crime solely on homophobia. Instead, we get a picture of a professionally and financially desperate man whose act may have been largely to avenge his not being reinstated to his job after he resigned. Weiss' vivid reconstruction of the personalities and politics that were on a collision course emerges as an informative commentary on a major event in the city's rich history