Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America [NOOK Book]

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Overview

In the years following World War II, a small group of gay writers established themselves as literary power players, fueling cultural changes that would resonate for decades to come, and transforming the American literary landscape forever.

In EMINENT OUTLAWS, novelist Christopher Bram brilliantly chronicles the rise of gay consciousness in American writing. Beginning with a first wave of major gay literary figures-Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, Allen Ginsberg, and James Baldwin-he shows how (despite criticism and occasional setbacks) these pioneers set the stage for ...
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Overview

In the years following World War II, a small group of gay writers established themselves as literary power players, fueling cultural changes that would resonate for decades to come, and transforming the American literary landscape forever.

In EMINENT OUTLAWS, novelist Christopher Bram brilliantly chronicles the rise of gay consciousness in American writing. Beginning with a first wave of major gay literary figures-Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, Allen Ginsberg, and James Baldwin-he shows how (despite criticism and occasional setbacks) these pioneers set the stage for new generations of gay writers to build on what they had begun: Armistead Maupin, Edmund White, Tony Kushner, and Edward Albee among them.

Weaving together the crosscurrents, feuds, and subversive energies that provoked these writers to greatness, EMINENT OUTLAWS is a rich and essential work. With keen insights, it takes readers through fifty years of momentous change: from a time when being a homosexual was a crime in forty-nine states and into an age of same-sex marriage and the end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble

Christopher Bram's narrative history proves its subtitle claim: Gay writers have indeed changed our country and our literary scene. Bram pays due tribute to Hart Crane, Thornton Wilder, and other homosexual poets and playwrights who laid the groundwork; but his profiles focus on more recent gay authors, most notably Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, James Baldwin, Edward Albee, James Merrill, Allen Ginsberg, Tony Kushner, and Edmund White. An appreciative look at vanguard gay writers.

Dwight Garner
It's argumentative and often resonant, and lit from below by a gossipy wit. But its power is less sentence by sentence than cumulative. You don't realize how much the details of these writers' books and difficult lives have touched you until the book's final chapters…With Eminent Outlaws [Bram] has filled a gap in our critical literature.
—The New York Times
More Reviews (4) Fewer Reviews
Peter Parker
A novelist rather than an academic, Bram is unabashedly guided by his own literary taste and writes in a pleasantly relaxed and always very readable style. This casual approach leads to some errors of detail, but he properly sifts wheat from chaff and leaves the reader at what he calls the "high tide" of gay literature at the end of the 20th century.
—The Washington Post
Publishers Weekly
This select series of profiles and literary analyses by the author of Gods and Monsters (turned into an Oscar-winning film) explores with brio the gay temper in American literature, from 1948 to 2000. Segmenting his book into five parts, by decade, Bram concentrates on the giants among them: Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, James Baldwin, Edward Albee, James Merrill, Larry Kramer, Tony Kushner, and, above all Edmund White (the “central figure” for his generation, as Vidal had been for an earlier one). We’re treated to their successes as well as to the juicy rivalries that sometimes marked their careers. Bram doesn’t indulge in canon formation. In fact, he only mentions Henry James, Willa Cather (one of the few women of this book on a male tradition), Hart Crane, and Thornton Wilder in passing. Rather, Bram succeeds in integrating the politics and culture of homosexuality from the postwar period through McCarthyism and Stonewall to the decimating specter of AIDS and a healthy new liberation. Storytelling, Bram says, was central to the gay revolution. “And why not?... what is homosexuality but a special narrative of love?” Unified by the keen observations of a novelist working in the tradition that re-energized American letters, Bram successfully informs and entertains. Agent: Edward Hibbert. (Feb. 2)
Library Journal
This book is a history, literary critique, and collective biography in one. Novelist Bram (Gods and Monsters), himself an essential gay writer, discusses gay men (no women here, with no explanation) from Gore Vidal in the early postwar years up through the 1990s and close to the present. His main thesis, that "good art can lay the groundwork for social change," is demonstrated and contextualized in dozens of examples of how literature can be not just a reflection of the times but also a catalyst for change; for example, Mart Crowley's 1968 play (made into a 1970 movie), The Boys in the Band, is shown to have produced conflicting reactions that spurred the debate of what gay culture should look like. VERDICT The men Bram focuses on, from James Baldwin to David Leavitt, are beautifully drawn, and Bram has a knowing critical eye for the strengths and weaknesses of their works. Bram's own prose is wonderfully immediate and readable, combining biography, gossip, literary criticism, and social history. Highly recommended for all literary historians and for those interested in American or LGBT studies or the rise of gay literature. [See Prepub Alert, 7/18/11.]—David Azzolina, Univ. of Pennsylvania Libs., Philadelphia
Kirkus Reviews
Novelist and Guggenheim Fellow Bram (Exiles in America, 2006, etc.) charts the emergence of gay writers, decade by decade, from the mostly-closeted 1940s to the whole-house present. The author, gay himself, does not say much about his own career here--just a couple of modest asides--but he does pay homage to those he considers the godfathers of gay writing, including Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, James Baldwin and the "fairy godfather," Gore Vidal, to whom Bram returns continually throughout. The author also slams those critics who could not see the literary merit of stories with gay characters and behavior--principally Stanley Kauffmann, Stanley Edgar Hyman and Midge Decter, though Bram points out that writers from Norman Mailer to Andrew Sullivan have at times had "issues." Bram follows the careers of the godfathers, but he also looks at other important novelists, poets and playwrights, including Christopher Isherwood, Allen Ginsberg, Edward Albee, James Merrill, Frank O'Hara, Edmund White, Larry Kramer, Tony Kushner, Mark Doty, David Leavitt, Michael Cunningham and many others. Often he pauses for plot summary, analysis and judgment. The author also points out writers he believes have not received sufficient attention, among them Paul Russell, Mark Merlis and Henry Rios. Bram pauses occasionally to rehearse key events in gay cultural history--the Howl obscenity trial, the Stonewall riots, the televised 1968 clash between William F. Buckley Jr., and Vidal, Anita Bryant's anti-gay crusade, the devastating effects of the AIDS crisis in the '80s and beyond. Bram also flashes some attitude here and there, and not just toward the enemies of gay writers. He sometimes chides Vidal, shines a harsh light on Capote and calls Edmund White's novel Caracole "a complete dud." An educative mixture of analysis, celebration, description, disappointment, disdain and, finally, love.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780446575980
  • Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
  • Publication date: 2/2/2012
  • Sold by: Hachette Digital, Inc.
  • Format: eBook
  • Sales rank: 67,722
  • File size: 836 KB

Meet the Author

Christopher Bram
Christopher Bram

Christopher Bram is the author of nine novels, including Gods and Monsters (originally titled Father of Frankenstein), which was made into an Academy Award-winning film. Bram was a 2001 Guggenheim Fellow and received the 2003 Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement. He lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

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Sort by: Showing all of 2 Customer Reviews

  • Posted March 18, 2012

    Definitely worth the money and time.

    A quick read, highly entertaining, and enjoyable though probably because I've lived through and remember most of what he wrote about. It's always fun to get someone else's slant on things, even if, like this author, he tends to be highly opinionated and quite cynical. Also, I thought he left out some very important (to me at least) authors, but maybe that's another book?

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted May 11, 2012

    No text was provided for this review.

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