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: Christopher Isherwood, Edmund White, and Tony Kushner, among them. Weaving together the crosscurrents, feuds, and subversive energies that provoked these writers to greatness,

EMINIENT OUTLAWS is a rich and essential work. With keen insights, it takes readers through 50 years of momentous change: from a time when being a homosexual was a crime in 49 states and into an age of same-sex marriage and the end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.