From A Whisper to A Riot: The Gay Writers Who Crafted an American Literary Tradition

For decades, the two dominant areas of study for gay literature in America have centered on the Stonewall Riots and the AIDS crisis. These examinations are critical and understandably exhaustive; however, the abundance of attention paid to studies within them further explains why less attention has been given to literature published before these momentous events. The truth is, the gay literary tradition in America is much longer and richer than we have acknowledged. In this extensively-researched academic text, queer studies scholar Adam W. Burgess, Ph.D., examines the genesis of the gay literary tradition in the United States, which developed between 1903-1968. Burgess employs close literary analysis of critical but lesser known texts alongside sociocultural and historical perspectives in order to explain how and why gay authors managed to write and publish in a time that was openly hostile to homosexuality and homosexual themes. From A Whisper to A Riot contributes a critical missing component to the study of gay literature in the United States. It covers a range of authors, from Charles Warren Stoddard and Henry Blake Fuller to James Baldwin and Mart Crowley. The book is a must-read for academics, students, and scholars of American literature, history, and LGBT Studies.