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

by Adam W. Burgess

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.

Genres: Nonfiction, LGBT

329 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 18, 2019

About the author

Adam Burgess is a poet and author of short fiction, essays, and creative non-fiction. His first book, From A Whisper to A Riot: The Gay Writers Who Crafted an American Literary Tradition, was an Amazon best seller in Literary Criticism and in LGBT Studies. Adam is currently working on Young Adult fiction.

Adam's poetry, essays, scholarly work, and short fiction have appeared in publications such as Variant Literature Journal, Broad River Review, Watermark Journal, Brave Voices Magazine, Emerging Writers: An Anthology of Non-Fiction, and Towers Magazine.

Adam Burgess earned a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in English Language and Literature from Northern Illinois University in 2017. He also holds a Master Arts (M.A.) in English from California State University–Long Beach and a bachelors in English from Northern Illinois University.

Reviews

[Joseph Dante · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating and accessible scholarship on several overlooked gay writers from the earlier half of the 20th century. The parts of the book I found especially interesting were those that dissected how early gay writers used forms of code in an attempt to avoid censorship and laws that tried to suppress open discourse of homosexuality. Nice to see such an astute exploration of a woefully unexplored topic.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

full review on https://www.anthonycardno.com/blog/20...