Rebel Voices: Recent Books

Four new books look at people who exemplify the lesson: If you go against the grain, do it without apology.

By Matt Gurry

Then Comes Marriage (W.W. Norton & Co., $28), the memoir of Roberta Kaplan, who argued Edith Windsor’s landmark case before the Supreme Court, reveals intriguing info such as the fact that Kaplan had secretly met with Windsor’s deceased partner two decades earlier.

Underground literary icon Gary Indiana’s memoir I Can Give You Anything But Love recounts how he grew up gay in New England, lived in San Francisco and NYC, and finally ended up in Cuba.

“Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn,” said Gore Vidal, who lived and wrote by that maxim. Jay Parini’s biography of Vidal, Empire of Self, uses interviews with Graham Greene, Paul Newman and Vidal’s partner Howard Austen to explore the daring author’s legacy.