About book Anges Batailleurs : Les écrivains Gay En Amérique, De Tennesse Williams à Armistead Maupin (2013)
This is a fascinating account of the intersections of history, the written word and the formation of the current movements for LGBT equality in america expressed through the lives and works of gay authors. The reader learns how these writers were seen in their ages and how they saw themselves too. The reader also learns the back story to the ebbs and flows of support for the LGBT community. Now there are even more books on my to read list. Excellent--good writing and insights. Eminent Outlaws is about the gay authors of the last half of the 20th Century-plus a bit, roughly 1945-2010, and what they contributed to the gay liberation movement, which, as it turns out, is arguably quite a lot. Could we have had Harvey Milk without Gore Vidal and James Baldwin? Truman Capote? Christopher Isherwood? Tennessee Williams? They weren't all "out" or at least not early in their careers when it was scary and dangerous, but they all edged us further towards liberation by telling us stories about people who were/are like us and telling us we were not alone. I was a little surprised as I read Eminent Outlaws that I've read all of these authors, if not all of their works. It's hard to imagine the gay political movement without these literary forebears. And in telling their stories, Christopher Bram (a novelist himself and quite a good writer) is also telling the story of gay liberation. "The literature," he writes, "was an agent of change," pointing out that only in the written word (not television or movies and rarely on stage) could gay people tell their stories. And in the early days -- as in Gore Vidal's "The City and the Pillar" even this was daring and dangerous. But they did tell their stories and gay people read them and created a market for their work and the work of others. And gradually gay authors came further out and their stories began to be told on stage and in film, and now ubiquitously on TV, too. But it started with the written word and this handful of authors who bravely told their stories and inspired -- or reflected -- a movement. The latter chapters of the book are less moving, engaging and interesting, partly because I don't like the predominant authors much (Edmund White, Larry Kramer) and because AIDS made for a lot of sad stories. But Bram includes Armistead Maupin (Tales of the City), rightly, as an influential author at this time (and one who was not gloomy), although I don't think he ranks with Vidal, Capote, Baldwin, Isherwood or Williams. Eminent Outlaws is an amazing story, well told but less known than it should be.
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Expertly written, highly literate and worthwhile compendium of facts and interpretations.
—boothang
Loved this overview/summary of gay male writers of the past century.
—Idk
A fantastic read! I have so many gay novels to seek out now.
—joker83166
