His book focuses on the Gran Fury art collective ... The logistics behind demonstrations...would not seem to be the most scintillating material, but Lowery painstakingly reconstructs conversations and negotiations that compel a reader to feel the era’s anguish and urgency. Much of the collective’s work now hangs in major museums ... Lowery is young...but writes like an old soul, scholarly and indignant at how AIDS was for so many years minimized and marginalized. Occasionally he permits himself an exclamation point of delight or mild sarcasm ... But mostly It Was Vulgar, ...is a deeply sober story about a vulnerable population ... It Was Vulgar isn’t perfect — this critic wanted to get out a blue pencil whenever Lowery overused the word 'ultimately,' sometimes multiple times on a page, and his endnotes are scant. But it’s an important contribution to the annals of AIDS, and, in hewing close to but fanning out from a narrow cast of characters, a sturdy template for chroniclers of complex sociopolitical movements.
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