Larry Kramer Dies at 84

I remember Larry Kramer from his days writing for the New York Native, when he was shouting the alarm over a mysterious disease killing gay men in New York. They wouldn’t listen to him, so he made them. He was among the few true lions in a world more in need of them now than ever.

From his obituary in The Guardian:

“Larry Kramer, who has died aged 84 of pneumonia, enraged many gay readers with his lurid 1978 novel Faggots, a cautionary bestseller warning against the perils of promiscuity, before addressing the Aids crisis in his 1985 play The Normal Heart, in which an activist-writer warns against the perils of promiscuity. Publishers Weekly said he “made red-faced fist-pumping into his art”.

He also put his mouth where his money was. As co-founder of two Aids advocacy groups, Gay Men’s Health Crisis and ACT UP (Aids Coalition to Unleash Power), he improved the lives of people suffering from HIV and Aids, and pilloried mercilessly and tirelessly those politicians and medical professionals who refused to take the epidemic seriously. Each of these figures he excoriated in lengthy screeds, or on the streets in a voice described by the LA Times as a “nasal bullhorn”.”