Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America

by Christopher Bram

  “ ‘Gay is good.’ We were all chanting it,… Ibid., 226.

  “Hubert Sorin, my lover, who just died two hours ago… Edmund White, Our Paris, 131–133.

  “intolerable to read in this post-AIDS period… Quoted in Richard Canning, Gay Fiction Speaks: Conversations with Gay Novelists, 84. White expanded on these reasons in his essay “Writing Gay,” which was reprinted in Arts and Letters.

  “First I had to finish the Genet book,… Quoted in Stephen Barber, Edmund White: The Burning World (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), 285.

  “In Eddie the man I detected a perversity… Edmund White, The Farewell Symphony, 241. I have removed the phrase “a pear-shaped body,” which is a fictional disguise. Merrill was always lean and unearthly.

  “I supposed Ridgefield [Westcott] would assign us both to Brunetto Latini’s [Dante’s] ring in hell… Ibid., 191.

  One reviewer, the usually hypercritical Dale Peck… Dale Peck, “True Lies,” Voice Literary Supplement, Fall 1997, 14. Christopher Benfey seemed to praise this gap, too, when he said, “This is an excruciating absence… around which the book, like scar tissue, is constructed.” (“The Dead,” New York Times Book Review, September 14, 1997. http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/09/14/reviews/970914.14benfeyt.html?scp=1&sq=farewell%20symphony%20by%20edmund%20white&st=cse.)

  He continued to revise the screenplay for Barbra Streisand… Patrick Merla, “A Normal Heart,” We Must Love One Another, 67.

  Kramer asked to see the advance galleys… Edmund White, e-mail message to the author, October 3, 2010.

  “[H]e parades before the reader what seems to be every trick… Larry Kramer, “Sex and Sensibility,” Advocate, May 27, 1997, 59–60. For the record, the narrator of The Farewell Symphony never reports anyone being rimmed or tied up. There is only one reference to watersports, already quoted.

  including the op-ed page of the New York Times…. Larry Kramer, “Gay Culture, Redefined,” New York Times, December 12, 1997. http://partners.nytimes.com/library/national/science/aids/121297sci-aids.html?scp=2&sq=larry%20kramer%20%22gay%20culture,%20redefined%22&st=cse. This was couched as an attack on a small, ad hoc group, Sex Panic, which he said “advocates unconditional, unlimited promiscuity.” They didn’t. They only wanted to stop the recent demonization of sex and wave of arrests in public places. But the mere mention of sex seemed to make Kramer irrational.

  And he can still appear irrational. Recently, in 2010, Kramer admitted in an interview that he was visiting hook-up sites online, with his partner’s permission. “There must be an awful lot of older men like me who are hungry for another sexual chapter before they die.” He did not think he was being a hypocrite, but said his old denunciation of sex was necessary for the times. (Tony Adams, “The Fresh Bile and Sex Life of Larry Kramer,” South Florida Gay News, May 2, 2010. http://www.southfloridagaynews.com/sfgn-columnists/columnists/tony-adams-column/1297-the-fresh-bile-and-sex-life-of-larry-kramer.html.)

  CHAPTER 21. HIGH TIDE

  Annual deaths from AIDS peaked in the United States in 1995 at 50,000…. Figures from University of California San Francisco HIV InSite. http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/InSite?page=kb-01-03.

  Cunningham himself said in an interview in Poz… Joy Episalla, “Dances with Woolf,” Poz magazine, February 2000. http://www.poz.com/articles/198_10543.shtml.

  “Learning you’re going to live… Quoted in Gale, Armistead Maupin, 76.

  “Tony’s like God… Tad Friend, “Virtual Love,” New Yorker, November 26, 2001, 88. The story gets even weirder and more complicated after the period covered in The Night Listener. Friend reports how a TV producer, Lesley Karstein, became involved, and there was talk of an HBO movie. Tony appeared in a documentary—but it was only an actor playing Tony. Vicki Johnson continued to insist she must protect Tony, since the pedophile ring—which she claimed included Ed Koch and Sammy Davis Jr.—could still be after him. Then Vicki met a psychologist named Dr. Zackheim, moved to Chicago, and left Tony with Ms. Karstein back in New York.

  It was Tad Friend who identified Vicki Johnson as Joanne Vicki Fraginals. By the time Friend started writing his article, Tony had disappeared. But in a chilling twist, Friend received a flurry of e-mails from Tony. Then Tony fell silent again. Friend closes his article with the first letter Maupin received from Tony, a Christmas card that included Francis P. Church’s famous quote from the September 21, 1897, New York Sun: “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist…. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see.”

  “I know how it sounds when I call him my son…. Armistead Maupin, The Night Listener (New York: HarperCollins, 2000), 1.

  “Artful Dodger by way of Bart Simpson… Ibid., 28.

  “Do you know why he left?… Ibid., 46.

  “I wrote the ending of the book the way I’d like it to be in life… Quoted in Friend, “Virtual Love.”

  “To be taken in everywhere is to see the inside… G. K. Chesterton, Charles Dickens (London: Methuen & Co., 1906), 70–71.

  EPILOGUE: REWRITING AMERICA

  “Kiss me… Gore Vidal, Point to Point Navigation, 82.

  “As I now move, graciously, I hope,… Ibid., 1.

  “That play implies that I am madly in love with McVeigh… Tim Teeman, “Gore Vidal: ‘We’ll Have a Dictatorship Soon in the US,’ ” Times (London), September 30, 2009. http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article6854221.ece.

  The sales figures tell one story… The figures for City and the Pillar are only hardcover—a paperback wasn’t issued until five years later. Night Listener sold 58,000 in hardcover and 42,000 in trade paper during its first year. (Figures from Rakesh Satyal at HarperCollins.)

  Selected Bibliography

  PRIMARY WORKS

  Albee, Edward. Collected Plays of Edward Albee, Vol. 1 (1958–1965). Woodstock, NY: Overlook, 2004.

  ———. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? New York: New American Library, 2006.

  Baldwin, James. Another Country. New York: Dial Press, 1962.

  ———. Collected Essays. New York: Library of America, 1998.

  ———. Giovanni’s Room. New York: Dial Press, 1956.

  ———. Go Tell It on the Mountain. New York: Knopf, 1953.

  Bumbalo, Victor. What Are Tuesdays Like? New York: Broadway Play Publishing, 2010.

  Cameron, Peter. Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2007.

  Capote, Truman. Answered Prayers: The Unfinished Novel. New York: Random House, 1987.

  ———. Breakfast at Tiffany’s. New York: Modern Library, 1994.

  ———. In Cold Blood. New York: Random House, 1966.

  ———. Other Voices, Other Rooms. New York: Modern Library, 2004.

  Crowley, Mart. The Boys in the Band. New York: Alyson, 2008.

  ———. The Collected Plays of Mart Crowley. New York: Alyson, 2009.

  Cunningham, Michael. A Home at the End of the World. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1990.

  ———. The Hours. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1999.

  Dixon, Melvin. Love’s Instruments. New York: Tia Chucha, 1995.

  Doty, Mark. Turtle, Swan & Bethlehem in Broad Daylight. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000.

  ———. Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems. New York: HarperCollins, 2008.

  Ginsberg, Allen. Collected Poems, 1947–1997. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.

  ———. Howl and Other Poems. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1956.

  Gunn, Thom. Collected Poems. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1994.

  Holleran, Andrew. Dancer from the Dance. New York: Morrow, 1978.

  ———. Ground Zero. New York: Morrow, 1988.

  Isherwood, Christopher. The Berlin Stories. New York: New Directions, 1954.

  ———. Christopher and His Kind. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1976.

>   ———. Diaries, Vol. 1(1939–1960). ed. Katherine Bucknell. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

  ———. Down There on a Visit. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962.

  ———. A Single Man. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964.

  ———. The World in the Evening. New York: Random House, 1954.

  Kramer, Larry. Faggots. New York: Random House, 1978.

  ———. The Normal Heart and The Destiny of Me. New York: Grove, 2000.

  ———. Reports from the Holocaust. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989.

  Kushner, Tony. Angels in America: Part 1. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1993.

  ———. Angels in America: Part 2. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1994.

  ———. Plays by Tony Kushner. (A Bright Room Called Day and The Illusionist.) New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1992.

  ———. Thinking about the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1995.

  Ludlam, Charles. The Complete Plays of Charles Ludlam. New York: Harper and Row, 1989.

  ———. Ridiculous Theater: Scourge of Human Folly, ed. Steven Samuels. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1992.

  Maupin, Armistead. Babycakes. New York: Harper and Row, 1984.

  ———. More Tales of the City. New York: Harper and Row, 1979.

  ———. The Night Listener. New York: HarperCollins, 2000.

  ———. Significant Others. New York: Harper and Row, 1987.

  ———. Sure of You. New York: HarperCollins, 1989.

  ———. Tales of the City. New York: Harper and Row, 1978.

  McCauley, Stephen. The Object of My Affection. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987.

  Merlis, Mark. An Arrow’s Flight. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1998.

  Merrill, James. The Changing Light at Sandover. New York, Atheneum, 1982.

  ———. A Different Person. New York: Knopf, 1993.

  ———. Divine Comedies. New York: Atheneum, 1976.

  ———. Selected Poems. New York: Knopf, 2008.

  Nava, Michael. Howtown. New York: HarperCollins, 1990.

  O’Hara, Frank. Selected Poems. New York: Knopf, 2008.

  Russell, Paul. Sea of Tranquillity. New York: Dutton, 1994.

  Saytal, Rakesh. Blue Boy. New York: Kensington, 2009.

  Vidal, Gore. Burr. New York: Random House, 1973.

  ———. The City and the Pillar. New York: Dutton, 1948. (Revised 1965.)

  ———. Matters of Fact and Fiction: Essays 1973–1976. New York: Random House, 1977.

  ———. Myra Breckinridge. Boston: Little, Brown, 1968.

  ———. The Second American Revolution and Other Essays (1976–1982). New York: Random House, 1982.

  White, Edmund. The Beautiful Room Is Empty. New York: Knopf, 1988.

  ———. A Boy’s Own Story. New York: Dutton, 1982.

  ———. Caracole. New York: Dutton, 1985.

  ———. The Farewell Symphony. New York: Knopf: 1997.

  ———. The Married Man. New York: Knopf, 2000.

  ———. Nocturnes for the King of Naples. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1978.

  ———. States of Desire. New York: Dutton, 1980.

  Williams, Tennessee. Collected Stories. New York: New Directions, 1985.

  ———. Memoirs. Garden City: Doubleday, 1975.

  ———. Plays, 1937–1955. New York: Library of America, 2000.

  BIOGRAPHY, CRITICISM, AND HISTORY

  Bachardy, Don. Christopher Isherwood: Last Drawings. London, Boston: Faber and Faber, 1990.

  Bergman, David, ed. The Violet Quill Reader. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.

  Berube, Allan. Coming Out Under Fire. New York: Free Press, 1990.

  Bronski, Michael. Pulp Friction. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003.

  Campbell, James. Thom Gunn in Conversation with James Campbell. London: BTL, 2000.

  ———. Talking at the Gates: A Life of James Baldwin. New York: Viking, 1991.

  Canning, Richard. Gay Fiction Speaks: Conversations with Gay Novelists. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.

  ———. Hear Us Out: Conversations with Gay Novelists. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.

  Clark, Philip, and David Groff, eds. Persistent Voices: Poetry by Writers Lost to AIDS. New York: Alyson, 2010.

  Clarke, Gerald. Capote. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988.

  Cleaver, Eldridge. Soul on Ice. New York: Dell, 1968.

  Curtin, Kaier. We Can Always Call Them Bulgarians. Boston: Alyson, 1988.

  Davenport-Hines, Richard. Auden. New York: Pantheon, 1996.

  Duberman, Martin. Stonewall. New York: Dutton, 1993.

  Gale, Patrick. Armistead Maupin. Bath, England: Absolute, 1999.

  Gussow, Mel. Edward Albee: A Singular Journey. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989.

  Gambone, Philip. Something Inside: Conversations with Gay Writers. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999.

  Kaplan, Fred. Gore Vidal. New York: Doubleday, 1999.

  Kaufman, David. Ridiculous! The Theatrical Life and Times of Charles Ludlam. New York: Applause, 2002.

  Lahr, John. Honky Tonk Parade. Woodstock, NY: Overlook, 2005.

  LeSueur, Joe. Digressions on Some Poems by Frank O’Hara. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003.

  Mailer, Norman. Advertisements for Myself. New York: Putnam, 1959.

  ———. Pieces and Pontifications. Boston: Little, Brown, 1982.

  Mass, Lawrence, ed. We Must Love One Another or Die. New York: St. Martin’s, 1997.

  Merla, Patrick, ed. Boys Like Us: Gay Writers Tell Their Coming Out Stories. New York: Avon, 1996.

  Miles, Barry. Ginsberg. London: Virgin, 2001.

  Paller, Michael. Gentlemen Callers. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

  Parker, Peter. Isherwood: A Life. London: Picador, 2005.

  Rich, Adrienne. On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose, 1966–1978. New York: Norton, 1979.

  Rorem, Ned. Other Entertainments. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996.

  Schumacher, Michael, ed. Family Business: Selected Letters Between a Father and a Son, Allen and Louis Ginsberg. New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2002.

  Sherry, Michael. Gay Artists in Modern American Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007.

  Sontag, Susan. A Susan Sontag Reader. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1982.

  Trilling, Diana. Reviewing the Forties. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978.

  Weatherby, W. J. James Baldwin: Artist on Fire. New York: Donald I. Fine: 1989.

  White, Edmund, ed. Loss within Loss: Artists in the Age of AIDS. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2001.

  Windham, Donald. Lost Friendships. New York: Morrow, 1987.

  Permissions

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to quote material in copyright:

  Don Bachardy for excerpts from Diaries: Volume 1, 1939–1960, Down There on a Visit, A Single Man, Christopher and His Kind, and diaries and letters quoted in Isherwood by Peter Parker, copyright © 1996, 1962, 1964, 1976, and 2004 by Christopher Isherwood estate.

  Don Bachardy for excerpts from Christopher Isherwood: The Last Drawings, copyright © 1990 by Don Bachardy.

  Bloomsbury Publishing Inc. for excerpts from Family Business: Letters and Poetry by Allen Ginsberg, Louis Ginsberg, and Michael Schumacher, copyright © 2001 by Allen Ginsberg, Louis Ginsberg, and Michael Schumacher.

  Mart Crowley for excerpts from The Boys in the Band, copyright © 2003 by Mart Crowley.

  Deanna Dixon for the Estate of Melvin Dixon for an excerpt from “Heartbeats” from Love’s Instruments (Tia Churcha Press), copyright © 1995 by the Estate of Melvin Dixon.

  David R. Godine, publisher, for excerpts from “63rd Street Y” and “Tiara” by Mark Doty, copyright © 1991 by Mark Doty.

  HarperCollins Publishers for excerpts fro
m Collected Poems (1947–1997) by Allen Ginsberg, copyright © 2006 by the Allen Ginsberg Trust.

  Andrew Holleran for excerpts from Dancer from the Dance and Ground Zero, copyright © 1978 and 1988 by Andrew Holleran.

  Larry Kramer for excerpts from The Normal Heart, Reports from the Holocaust, and “Interview with Gore Vidal,” copyright © 1985, 1989, and 1992 by Larry Kramer.

  Tony Kushner for excerpts from “The Second Month of Mourning,” A Bright Room Called Day, Angels in America: Part 1, Angels in America: Part 2, and “On Pretentiousness,” copyright © 1995, 1992, 1993, 1994, and 1995 by Tony Kushner.

  Armistead Maupin for excerpts from Tales of the City, More Tales of the City, Sure of You, and The Night Listener, copyright © 1978, 1980, 1989, and 2000 by Armistead Maupin.

  J. D. McClatchy for excerpts from the poetry of James Merrill copyright © the Literary Estate of James Merrill at Washington University used with permission.

  New York Times for excerpts from “Homosexual Drama and Its Disguises” by Stanley Kauffmann, January 23, 1966, copyright © 1966 The New York Times. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution or retransmission of the Content without express written permission is prohibited.

  Edmund White for excerpts from “Letter to Alfred Corn,” Nocturnes for the King of Naples, States of Desire, A Boy’s Own Story, “An Oracle,” The Beautiful Room Is Empty, Our Paris, and The Farewell Symphony, copyright © 1994, 1978, 1980, 1982, 1988, 1988, 2002, and 1998 by Edmund White.

  The Wylie Agency for UK rights for excerpts from Collected Poems (1947–1997) by Allen Ginsberg, copyright © 2006 by Allen Ginsberg Trust.

  About the Author

  Christopher Bram is the author of nine novels, including The Father of Frankenstein (which was made into the Academy-Award-winning movie Gods And Monsters), Lives of the Circus Animals, and Exiles in America. He also writes book reviews, movie reviews, screenplays, and essays. He was a 2001 Guggenheim Fellow and received the 2003 Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement. He grew up in Virginia, attended the College of William and Mary, and currently teaches at Gallatin College at New York University. He lives in New York City.