Faggots

Larry Kramer

Dec 2007 · Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

About this ebook

“A book of major historical importance—the first contemporary novel to chronicle gay life with unsparing honesty and wild humor.”—Erica Jong
 
In print since its original publication in 1978, Larry Kramer’s Faggots has become one of the bestselling novels about gay life ever written. The book is a fierce satire of the gay ghetto and a touching story of one man’s desperate search for love there, and reading it today is a fascinating look at how much, and how little, has changed.
 
“As a documentation of an era, as savage and savagely funny social parody, as a cry in the wilderness, and as a prescient, accurate reading of the writing on the wall, the novel is peerless and utterly necessary. It is brilliant, bellicose, contemptuous, compassionate and—as is true of everything Kramer writes—behind its delectable, entertaining, sometimes maddening harshness is a profoundly moving plea for justice and for love. There are few books in modern gay fiction, or modern fiction for that matter, that must be read. Faggots is certainly one of them.”—Tony Kushner

“A Vesuvian explosion about the gay life that spares no one and no thing . . . there is much truth and honesty to be found here.”—Chicago Tribune 

“True comic brilliance—a vicious Swiftian satire that, like all satire, contains a strong moral voice.”—New York 

“Faggots, for all its excesses, is frequently right on target and, when it is on target, is appallingly funny.”—Edward Albee 

“Larry Kramer is one of America’s most valuable troublemakers. I hope he never lowers his voice.”—Susan Sontag

Ratings and reviews

I read this book almost 40 years ago. I felt at the time that it showed what was happening in a tiny corner of the gay world. Forty years on I still think that is true, but I am no longer as shocked and awed by what I found here all those years ago. All you need is a few hot summers nights in the '70s and '80s and you can't be shocked by anything any more.

Love

MEGA FAGGOT

About the author

Larry Kramer (1935-2020) was a writer and activist. In 1981, with five friends, he founded Gay Men’s Health Crisis, and in 1987 he founded ACT UP. He is the author of The Normal Heart, which in 2014 was made into an Emmy-winning TV adaptation by HBO. His other plays include The Destiny of Me, Sissies’ Scrapbook, and Just Say No, and his prose work includes The American People Volumes 1 & 2, the novel Faggots, two nonfiction books, and a screenplay, Women in Love. He was a recipient of the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a Master American Dramatist, and the Isabelle Stevenson Award, presented by the Tony Awards Committee.