In the years following World War II a group of gay writers established themselves as major cultural figures in American life. Truman Capote, the enfant terrible, whose finely wrought fiction and nonfiction captured the nation's imagination. Gore Vidal, the wry, withering chronicler of politics, sex, and history. Tennessee Williams, whose powerful plays rocketed him to the top of the American theater. James Baldwin, the harrowingly perceptive novelist and social critic. Christopher Isherwood, the English novelist who became a thoroughly American novelist. And the exuberant Allen Ginsberg, whose poetry defied censorship and exploded minds. Together, their writing introduced America to gay experience and sensibility, and changed our literary culture. But the change was only beginning. A new generation of gay writers followed, taking more risks and writing about their sexuality more openly. Edward Albee brought his prickly iconoclasm to the American theater. Edmund White laid bare his own life in stylized, autobiographical works. Armistead Maupin wove a rich tapestry of the counterculture, queer and straight. Mart Crowley brought gay men's lives out of the closet and onto the stage. And Tony Kushner took them beyond the stage, to the center of American ideas. With authority and humor, Christopher Bram weaves these men's ambitions, affairs, feuds, loves, and appetites into a single sweeping narrative. Chronicling over fifty years of momentous change-from civil rights to Stonewall to AIDS and beyond-EMINENT OUTLAWS is an inspiring, illuminating tale: one that reveals how the lives of these men are crucial to understanding the social and cultural history of the American twentieth century.
Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America
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Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Highly regarded novelist Bram’s needed, spirited survey of post-WWII gay literature in America begins with this compelling line, “The gay revolution began as a literary revolution.” In his view, many prominent gay novelists, playwrights, and poets—as their novels, plays, and poems rose in critical and public acceptance from “outlaw” to “pioneer” status—led the way for a social change that swept the country, by which gay life in general gained in increasing acceptance. The image the reader gathers from this learned but never stuffy analysis, brimming with Bram’s own well-considered and entertaining opinions, is a door of a darkened room slowly opening to admit the light from without. We begin our visitation to seminal writers with the first wave following the end of WWII, which included such figures, now thought of as luminaries, as Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Allen Ginsburg, and James Baldwin. Just as recovery from illness is not a perfect trajectory upward, the reaction to gay lit wavered, even in increasingly tolerant times, certainly hitting a speed bump during the AIDS crisis. Bram notes an irony in the present day: even as the economy has resulted in a shrinking publishing industry, vast strides in gay acceptance have been made. For all literature collections striving for inclusion and relevance. --Brad Hooper
Review
"Eminent Outlaws is a spectacular overview of our gay literary history." (Instinct Magazine )
"Bram does a terrific job in cataloguing the lives of these important figures, from Vidal to James Baldwin to Michael Cunningham. He reveals their often tortured interior lives. His examinations of the works themselves are original and thoughtful. Eminent Outlaws is entertaining and informative, packed with interesting gossip and opinions." (Columbia Journalism Review )
"As Bram's high-sounding subtitle promises-and these lives from Vidal through Baldwin and O'Hara to White and Kushner deliver-gay lib began as a literary movement; the aesthetic was always political, too....EMINENT OUTLAWS is the next (last?) step in reporting on literary lives that traces back to the gay dinner parties of yore. Few would have it any other way." (Newsweek )
"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' he has filled a gap in our critical literature." (The New York Times )
"Bram's portraits of an often-reluctant gay literary vanguard is fascinating enough, but alongside a 50-year narrative of unexplored gay aesthetic, he also provides a parallel history of the gay-rights movement....Bram's bio-history is fun to read and will be the standard text of the defining era of gay literati glitterati." (Philadelphia Inquirer )
"Bram uses a series of complex portraits of America's most influential gay literary lions to argue for their position in the pantheon of American culture.... Eminent Outlaws offers a crucial and fascinating overview of decades of American literary history." (Salon.com )
"With keen insight into the essential relationship between storytelling and gay identity-as well as careful research into the journals, letters and books of America's great gay writers-Outlaws traces the cultural influence of gay literature throughout the second half of the 20th century.... Perhaps we have Bram's early sense of service as a boy scout to thank for the work he's done to preserve history in Outlaws. That Bram pulls it off with such style seems appropriate: it's a gay history, after all." (Next Magazine )
"Bram does a terrific job in cataloguing the lives of these important figures, from Vidal to James Baldwin to Michael Cunningham. He reveals their often tortured interior lives. His examinations of the works themselves are original and thoughtful. Eminent Outlaws is entertaining and informative, packed with interesting gossip and opinions." (Columbia Journalism Review )
"As Bram's high-sounding subtitle promises-and these lives from Vidal through Baldwin and O'Hara to White and Kushner deliver-gay lib began as a literary movement; the aesthetic was always political, too....EMINENT OUTLAWS is the next (last?) step in reporting on literary lives that traces back to the gay dinner parties of yore. Few would have it any other way." (Newsweek )
"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' he has filled a gap in our critical literature." (The New York Times )
"Bram's portraits of an often-reluctant gay literary vanguard is fascinating enough, but alongside a 50-year narrative of unexplored gay aesthetic, he also provides a parallel history of the gay-rights movement....Bram's bio-history is fun to read and will be the standard text of the defining era of gay literati glitterati." (Philadelphia Inquirer )
"Bram uses a series of complex portraits of America's most influential gay literary lions to argue for their position in the pantheon of American culture.... Eminent Outlaws offers a crucial and fascinating overview of decades of American literary history." (Salon.com )
"With keen insight into the essential relationship between storytelling and gay identity-as well as careful research into the journals, letters and books of America's great gay writers-Outlaws traces the cultural influence of gay literature throughout the second half of the 20th century.... Perhaps we have Bram's early sense of service as a boy scout to thank for the work he's done to preserve history in Outlaws. That Bram pulls it off with such style seems appropriate: it's a gay history, after all." (Next Magazine )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
30 of 33 people found the following review helpful
By Charlus
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
In this much needed cultural history, Chris Bram covers American gay literature (novels, plays, poems, essays) from post World War II to the present. Each chapter centers around one writer in a chronologic progression, although as the book proceeds it crisscrosses back and forth to bring previously mentioned writers up to date. Because everyone seemed to know everyone else (in a six degrees of separation manner) Bram is able to keep a potentially confusing narrative straight (so to speak).
As he says in his Intro, "My models were literary histories that mix criticism with biography, social history, good gossip and a strong point of view" (p.xi) and I would say he succeeds admirably although sometimes he presses the pedal a bit hard on the gossip. He is free with his opinions and the social history accumulates a roll call of villains (Philip Roth, William F Buckley Jr, Wilfred Sheed, Elizabeth Hardwick, Stanley Kauffman among many others). The critic Joseph Epstein is quoted as writing of his four sons "Nothing they could ever do would make me sadder than if one of them were to become homosexual" (p.152). And surprises abound: Norman Mailer comes off looking relatively good!
But the focus is on literature and that is the reason to read this book. Judgements are plentiful. Of Christopher Isherwood: "A novel is such a small thing, but "A Single Man" has endured, like a mammal surrounded by dinosaurs" (p.116). Of Gore Vidal and Edmund White: "Yet while Vidal writes best about power, politics and history, White's strengths are sex, art, and - sometime - love. Each tends to stumble when he enters the other's domain" (p.175).
Like all good books of criticism, this one makes one eager to read the many works one may have missed or re-read others. And like all social histories of homosexuality, this one is fueled by anger and sadness, at the often wasted, oppressed lives and those lost to AIDS. It is supremely readable and well argued, even when you disagree. If you care about gay literature, this is the book to read now, about where we were and who we are.
As he says in his Intro, "My models were literary histories that mix criticism with biography, social history, good gossip and a strong point of view" (p.xi) and I would say he succeeds admirably although sometimes he presses the pedal a bit hard on the gossip. He is free with his opinions and the social history accumulates a roll call of villains (Philip Roth, William F Buckley Jr, Wilfred Sheed, Elizabeth Hardwick, Stanley Kauffman among many others). The critic Joseph Epstein is quoted as writing of his four sons "Nothing they could ever do would make me sadder than if one of them were to become homosexual" (p.152). And surprises abound: Norman Mailer comes off looking relatively good!
But the focus is on literature and that is the reason to read this book. Judgements are plentiful. Of Christopher Isherwood: "A novel is such a small thing, but "A Single Man" has endured, like a mammal surrounded by dinosaurs" (p.116). Of Gore Vidal and Edmund White: "Yet while Vidal writes best about power, politics and history, White's strengths are sex, art, and - sometime - love. Each tends to stumble when he enters the other's domain" (p.175).
Like all good books of criticism, this one makes one eager to read the many works one may have missed or re-read others. And like all social histories of homosexuality, this one is fueled by anger and sadness, at the often wasted, oppressed lives and those lost to AIDS. It is supremely readable and well argued, even when you disagree. If you care about gay literature, this is the book to read now, about where we were and who we are.
24 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Christopher Bram's EMINENT OUTLAWS covers roughly fifty years of writing by gay authors of fiction, poetry and plays that he believes changed America. In his introduction, Bram says that the book is not an "all-inclusive, definitive literary history" and that he is not objective. Works that he admires are often works that influenced him or that he feels a "kinship with." GoreVidal is central to the first half of the book while Edmund White dominates the second half. Beginning with the publication of THE CITY AND THE PILLAR, Bram traces Vidal's long life and career, his writing of MYRA BRECKINRIDGE, his essays, his very public fights with William F. Buckley, Truman Capote and White, suggesting that Vidal in old age has "suffered a hardening of intellectual arteries." Bram calls him "a godfather of gay literature in spite of himself--a fairy godfather." Edmund White, "a brilliant prose stylist," gets equal treatment: his early days in New York, his role as one of the founders of GMHC, his life in France, and the publication of his many books, both fiction and nonfiction. Bram also includes Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Allen Ginsberg, James Baldwin, Christopher Isherwood, Mart Crowley James Merrill, Edward Albee, Larry Kramer, Andrew Holleran, Armistead Maupin, Thom Gunn, Michael Cunningham, and Tony Kushner along with many other writers as well. The book begins with Part I, "Into the Fifties," followed by the sixties, seventies, eighties and the nineties and after. Mr. Bram also includes Notes and an exhaustive Selected Bibliography.
Although those of us alive when many of these men published their books or first staged their plays knew about them and sometimes read the novels or, less often, saw the plays, what makes this book so exciting is that it is, as the author acknowledges also in his introduction, the first time the stories of all these men have been told in one narrative. Additionally he includes quotations by straight reviewers of the works-- if they were even reviewed at all-- that were often vitriolic and mean-spirited so we see just have difficult it was for gay literature to flourish decades ago. Just one example from dozens: Philip Roth, who should have been ashamed of himself-- in not then, certainly now-- attacked Edward Albee's play TINY ALICE for "'its ghastly pansy rhetoric and repartee.'" This book then should be required reading for all of us, both older and younger gay men, who want a better understanding of how these writers, some of them very brave, helped to change America and our lives.
Mr. Bram includes biographical facts, his critical analyses, and trivia that all come together in a most readable treasure trove. After THE CITY AND THE PILLAR, the daily NEW YORK TIMES did not review any of Vidal's work for fifteen years. Upon moving to California in the fifties to write for the movies, Vidal discovered that hustlers only charged ten dollars before six o'clock, a good deal for him, since that was the time he preferred to have sex anyway. W. H. Auden didn't like Ginsberg's hugely successful book HOWL AND OTHER POEMS (that a federal judge in California-- who taught Sunday School -- found not to be obscene). But then he didn't like Walt Whitman either. James Baldwin wrote an essay in 1949 attacking Vidal's THE CITY AND THE PILLAR, arguing that it was not about "homosexual love" but "the fear of sex between men." Isherwood, on the other hand, wrote a letter to Vidal about the book, acknowledging that "many homosexuals are unhappy," but also reminding him that "homosexual relationships can be and frequently are happy." Craig Rodwell (a hero for me) opened the first gay bookstore in the country Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop in Greenwich Village in 1967.
The author writes extensively about the 1970's, that golden time in gay literature when times were so much better and exciting things were happening. In 1978, for example, three very important gay novels, FAGGOTS, DANCER FROM THE DANCE and TALES OF THE CITY were all published. (I remember buying all three from a local independent bookstore.) Then all the hell of the 1980's. On July 3, 1981 that ominous small article appeared in the NEW YORK TIMES about a rare skin cancer found in gay men. And Larry Kramer wrote his now famous and sad article in the NATIVE on March 14, 1983 about the number of reported cases of AIDS, "1,112 and Counting." Then he wrote his play THE NORMAL HEART that eventually was produced all over the country. Of course the play about AIDS that would capture the hearts of America in the 1990`s, sans one Andrew Sullivan, was Tony Kushner's ANGELS IN AMERICA in two parts. Part One won both the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award. Bram concludes this splendid book with a summary of how things have changed, from the overturn by Congress of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the states where same-sex marriage is legal, the publication of books by many young gay authors, the television drama "Glee," the mixing of gay and straight characters in "Six Feet Under." The list is long.
Even when I disagree sometimes with Mr. Bram's opinions, they are always refreshing and engaging . For example, he says DOWN THERE ON A VISIT "might be" his favorite book by Christopher Isherwood. I would certainly vote, however, for A SINGLE MAN, a novel I have read many times, and would argue that it is the best gay novel written in America. He prefers Michael Cunningham's A HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD to THE HOURS. I would not. And I would vote for any of Armistead Maupin's TALES about San Francisco over THE NIGHT LISTENER. But isn't it wonderful that we have all these fantastic novels on which to disagree. He is so right though in his statement that "political activists rarely like fiction of any kind," as he says in his discussion of Craig Rodwell and Frank Kameny's distaste for "BOYS IN THE BAND." And while he offers no opinion on Christopher Isherwood's observation about those TALES that are much loved by gay readers all over the world that "'it is possible to commit art and entertainment in the same moment,'" I suspect he agrees with Mr. Isherwood.
EMINENT OUTLAWS is a book not to be missed.
Although those of us alive when many of these men published their books or first staged their plays knew about them and sometimes read the novels or, less often, saw the plays, what makes this book so exciting is that it is, as the author acknowledges also in his introduction, the first time the stories of all these men have been told in one narrative. Additionally he includes quotations by straight reviewers of the works-- if they were even reviewed at all-- that were often vitriolic and mean-spirited so we see just have difficult it was for gay literature to flourish decades ago. Just one example from dozens: Philip Roth, who should have been ashamed of himself-- in not then, certainly now-- attacked Edward Albee's play TINY ALICE for "'its ghastly pansy rhetoric and repartee.'" This book then should be required reading for all of us, both older and younger gay men, who want a better understanding of how these writers, some of them very brave, helped to change America and our lives.
Mr. Bram includes biographical facts, his critical analyses, and trivia that all come together in a most readable treasure trove. After THE CITY AND THE PILLAR, the daily NEW YORK TIMES did not review any of Vidal's work for fifteen years. Upon moving to California in the fifties to write for the movies, Vidal discovered that hustlers only charged ten dollars before six o'clock, a good deal for him, since that was the time he preferred to have sex anyway. W. H. Auden didn't like Ginsberg's hugely successful book HOWL AND OTHER POEMS (that a federal judge in California-- who taught Sunday School -- found not to be obscene). But then he didn't like Walt Whitman either. James Baldwin wrote an essay in 1949 attacking Vidal's THE CITY AND THE PILLAR, arguing that it was not about "homosexual love" but "the fear of sex between men." Isherwood, on the other hand, wrote a letter to Vidal about the book, acknowledging that "many homosexuals are unhappy," but also reminding him that "homosexual relationships can be and frequently are happy." Craig Rodwell (a hero for me) opened the first gay bookstore in the country Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop in Greenwich Village in 1967.
The author writes extensively about the 1970's, that golden time in gay literature when times were so much better and exciting things were happening. In 1978, for example, three very important gay novels, FAGGOTS, DANCER FROM THE DANCE and TALES OF THE CITY were all published. (I remember buying all three from a local independent bookstore.) Then all the hell of the 1980's. On July 3, 1981 that ominous small article appeared in the NEW YORK TIMES about a rare skin cancer found in gay men. And Larry Kramer wrote his now famous and sad article in the NATIVE on March 14, 1983 about the number of reported cases of AIDS, "1,112 and Counting." Then he wrote his play THE NORMAL HEART that eventually was produced all over the country. Of course the play about AIDS that would capture the hearts of America in the 1990`s, sans one Andrew Sullivan, was Tony Kushner's ANGELS IN AMERICA in two parts. Part One won both the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award. Bram concludes this splendid book with a summary of how things have changed, from the overturn by Congress of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the states where same-sex marriage is legal, the publication of books by many young gay authors, the television drama "Glee," the mixing of gay and straight characters in "Six Feet Under." The list is long.
Even when I disagree sometimes with Mr. Bram's opinions, they are always refreshing and engaging . For example, he says DOWN THERE ON A VISIT "might be" his favorite book by Christopher Isherwood. I would certainly vote, however, for A SINGLE MAN, a novel I have read many times, and would argue that it is the best gay novel written in America. He prefers Michael Cunningham's A HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD to THE HOURS. I would not. And I would vote for any of Armistead Maupin's TALES about San Francisco over THE NIGHT LISTENER. But isn't it wonderful that we have all these fantastic novels on which to disagree. He is so right though in his statement that "political activists rarely like fiction of any kind," as he says in his discussion of Craig Rodwell and Frank Kameny's distaste for "BOYS IN THE BAND." And while he offers no opinion on Christopher Isherwood's observation about those TALES that are much loved by gay readers all over the world that "'it is possible to commit art and entertainment in the same moment,'" I suspect he agrees with Mr. Isherwood.
EMINENT OUTLAWS is a book not to be missed.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
By Caddis Nymph
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
... I had no idea. There were a few surprises among the names named, at least for me, but absolutely no quarrel with the quality of the work produced by this contingent of the literary world. I finished reading this excellent, well-written and riveting book a couple of weeks ago, but having now enjoyed all of E.M. Forster's work earlier than 'A Room with a View', books I knew nothing about, I'm now trying to dig out more of the books and writers the author mentions.
'Eminent Outlaws' is not only worth reading, but worth re-reading. It'll definitely have a place in my virtual library.
'Eminent Outlaws' is not only worth reading, but worth re-reading. It'll definitely have a place in my virtual library.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Awesome Privilege
It is an awesome privilege to belong to the gay artistic community.
I've just finished reading Christopher Bram's "Eminent Outlaws - The Gay Writers Who Changed... Read more
I've just finished reading Christopher Bram's "Eminent Outlaws - The Gay Writers Who Changed... Read more
Published 13 days ago by David G. Hallman
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating collection of microbiographies
When people think of authors like Truman Capote and Allen Ginsberg they think of literary classics like Breakfast at Tiffany's and Howl, not their sexuality. Read more
Published 23 days ago by Andrew Keyser
4.0 out of 5 stars
lit crit without jargon
Because Bram is a writer and not an academic, this survey of gay American male writers in the second half of the 20th Century is free from critical jargon and immensely readable. Read more
Published 1 month ago by tony giffone
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely indispensable!!!
Stop reading the reviews and just go read this book. Snarky trolls back under your rocks. This is delicious fun reading on every page. Bram is a delight! Read more
Published 2 months ago by Francois Arouet
5.0 out of 5 stars
So much treasure...
... in so few pages.
Let me start this review, oddly enough, with the negative aspect of this book. Read more
Let me start this review, oddly enough, with the negative aspect of this book. Read more
Published 4 months ago by James Hiller
5.0 out of 5 stars
long overdue, original, brilliant, insightful - read it!
Bram writes, in his acknowledgements, that he "spent much of my life preparing to write this book." It shows. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Jazz fan
5.0 out of 5 stars
Like a good conversation with a brilliant friend
Christopher Bram's "Eminent Outlaws" is both touchstone and analysis of the gay writers in the Post WW II era. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Kathleen Warnock
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb, readable and informative
This book moves along at a nice pace, which is quite an achievement for a broad survey. The author is the perfect guide to the story , and offers insightful, sometimes sharp,... Read more
Published 11 months ago by James Kerr
5.0 out of 5 stars
Book I have been waiting for!
This is the book I have been waiting for, for a long time. I am in an all gay male book discussion group which has been in existence for 15 years, many years before I joined it. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Peter R. Lee
4.0 out of 5 stars
A treasure for those looking for gay history
The first two thirds are fascinating...in part because Bram gives the history of fascinating people such as Christopher Isherwood, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams,... Read more
Published 12 months ago by I. Sondel
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