When I was in my late teens, I found a lot of writing inspiration in The Outlaw Bible of American Literature. This collection of stories, essays, and literary oddities, published in 2004, exposed me to an array of exciting authors and artists I’d never read in school, people like Kathy Acker, Jim Carroll, Hunter S. Thompson, Charles Mingus, Philip K. Dick, Lenny Bruce… This 920-page tome is marketed as “a primer for generational revolt and an enduring document of the visionary tradition of authenticity and nonconformity in literature.”
Most literary “outlaws” are prominent men. Most follow a tradition of “bad boy” private school Brits. America’s Henry Miller to Jack Kerouac to Carroll’s Basket Ball Diaries celebrate the perverse often self-obsessed young man. charismatic bad boy lit and music performers like Dylan are known. Hey Laura Nyro? Bad girls in lit often die young, like Plath, performers do better. As the author of The Anarchist’s Girlfriend” and “Paradise Gardens,” collected in libraries at Stanford and Columbia and plays considered “too radical “ for a woman to write—i know being a lit bad girl is still taboo. Gay women have small press and niche followings. women of color get a shot, though not as accepted as bad girl George Eliot or Mary Shelley in their time. Colette pulled it off. But that’s France.
I think I mostly agree... But I think this skews male in part because the word "outlaw" conjures images of Billy the Kid and Jesse James--the classic male wild west outlaws. So maybe the term "outlaw" isn't great when talking about contemporary writers who push against the grain.
But I will say that there are plenty of rebel-like female writers out there today. Check out my friend Rachel Haywire's books Acidexia and The New Art Right. They're overtly "outlaw" books that hit just as hard and raw as any of the male writers that are stereotypical of the outlaw designation.
It’s no longer a culture suited to outlaws. Look at the great outlaw writers of the 20th century (such as the ones you mentioned)… These men had some serious flaws. Back then, we said “Okay, you can be a jerk and a great writer,” but now we’d boycott their publisher, pressure bookstores into dropping their books, harass their families on social media, etc. In other words, any great outlaw writer would quickly be cancelled.
Of course, there is Houellebecq, but the French have always had more tolerance for les enfants terrible.
Your second point is correct. He certainly used and abused drugs, with cocaine being the worst offender. It ruined him as a writer. However, your first and third claims are idiotic and I highly doubt you have any proof whatsoever to justify them.
Have I found my people? I like this comment section. I've always written transgressive stuff and have never found a literary community where I feel my work really fits. I appreciated this article, is what I'm trying to say. It resonates.
I'm very happy that Jim Carroll is your lead photo. He's a huge reason why I'm a writer. And this quote is very accurate: "More often than not, controversial figures who come from the left are essentially the inverse of an outlaw: they offend the normie masses while keeping entirely within the good graces of the traditional publishing world."
Thanks, Sherman. It's cool to see you on Substack! It's interesting to hear that Jim Carroll was an inspiration for you. Now that you mention it, I can see the influence.
Spot on! I got into Kerouac, Miller, Burroughs, Bowles and Bukowski as an antidote to the my English Literature A Level. After that were was no going back! I do still read Orwell though. I will look up The Outlaw Bible of American Literature.
Publishing seems so tied to commerce now. Which to me is depressing.
Although its worth checking out Fitzcarraldo Editions in the UK - they are doing amazing things!
Do you remember the "High Risk" short story collections that came out in the 1990s? They seemed to be an attempt to keep the Outlaw traditions alive. I was in Journalism school then, while spending just as much time in the English Lit department and subscribing to the New Yorker, which seemed to have been taken over by John Updike who was boring me so often it seemed like a challenge of sorts. There were writers in the 1990s at the alt weeklies that kept the outlaw tradition alive. The "Hey Faggot" column in the Stranger was one. So what happened? The internet happened. Facebook happened. If you wrote anything "High Risk literary", the algorithm would make sure hardly anyone saw it. The more information we had at our fingertips the more we were the same, all staring into the cold tundra computer screens that looked much the same. And then the screens became smaller, and smaller and smaller.
The alt-weeklies have gone out of business, many of them. The one I worked for in Milwaukee was taken over by a Democratic Party acitivist, largely because independent journalism couldn't be trusted in elections, especially when written by Socialists.
Or something like that. There was only one Burroughs, and he influenced many. Only one Thompson, and anyone writing like Thompson is immediately sniffed out and told to go home and sober up. You're right - the drugs stuff isn't all that intersting anymore.
My hunch is that the Outlaws are out there, they're just not in the business of practical writing, the Outlaw business being highly impractical. Who would publish it anyway?
I'm not familiar with the High Risk collections but sounds great. I'll definitely check that out.
I think your analysis is pretty much right. I would just add that the rise of the internet also gave people new outlets for expressing themselves. People who might otherwise have been short-story writers found it more rewarding to spend their time blogging, tweeting, or making YouTube videos. It's much more rewarding to gain a large following on a social media platform than it is to publish short stories that hardly anyone reads.
The High Risk anthology was critically important when it came out. Cover to cover bangers—it’s a great gateway to many good books and an era of writers. They published many books as well as an imprint of Serpent’s Tail. Or maybe it was a copublishing deal, I’m not sure
Track it down. Pick up Sapphire’s first poetry book they did. Absolutely brutal book.
If you're competing for likes and followers and popularity, you're no outlaw, as you know. I'm sure there were many outlaw blogs that stayed obscure or died for lack of popularity. Blogging itself has died somewhat. Everyboy's a photographer, a caption writer, a digital creator. It's not necessarily bad.
Thanks for the story link!! I'll try to read it in the next few days.
> anyone writing like Thompson is immediately sniffed out and told to go home and sober up. You're right - the drugs stuff isn't all that intersting anymore.
The drug stuff was the least interesting thing about Thompson's writing - just the most obvious
If you’re rebellious or subversive, if your aesthetic isn’t in line with that of the progressive women who work in publishing, then why would you want to become a writer? There are more obvious rewards to be gained elsewhere.
I think it's pretty common for people to feel called or compelled to write, just like some people feel called to make music or paint. I definitely feel this, as I've written basically every day since I was 14. Sitting down every night to work on a novel is my favorite part of the day, even though I've abandoned all allusions about ever selling a book to a major publisher.
I grew up like you, wrote every day as a kid, became a writer. I’ve published several books with major publishers and feel incredibly grateful. I just wonder, if I were 14 now, would I follow the same path? Or would I have found a different creative outlet? One that is maybe more inviting to teenage boys? But then, people aren’t rational. So hopefully young rebellious guys are still writing. And maybe some of their books will get elevated.
“if your aesthetic isn’t in line with that of the progressive women who work in publishing”
^^^It’s very much this^^^
Literally every agent on Duotrope (99%). Publishing any man perceived as an “outlaw” would quite literally go against the political ideologies of these publishers and probably be criticized as “platforming toxic masculinity” or some other jargon.
For straight white guys, who like the aforementioned “outlaws” and strive to join that lineage, it’s not going to happen until the people publishing things are more diverse.
A refreshing read! I feel you in every way, it's so easy to say modern literature is dead, but it's just hidden behind all the bullshit that's getting pumped into the mind-numbing-culture of today. I have been dealing with high profile publishers for the past two years and I kind of just gave up and decided to stick to self publishing, maybe I was an idiot but I refused to allow them to make me publish trendy self-help-crap. The industry of books is dying, economically, and the publishers who were once rich up to their eyeballs are getting poorer by the year since people don't read as much, and what is being consumed is almost propaganda from both extreme sides. Publishers are scared to publish true literature these days because it's difficult to market, hence why they care more about using social media presences to create a politically or identity driven book. I was at the London book fair three years ago and they said during one of the speeches, 'celebrity cook books' was the main focus that year, it was what was making money. Apparently the war had driven the paper price up and they didn't know what to do, so they were looking for safe bets. I once got told by a very famous agent, "As long as the publisher is interested in you, that's all that matters. We have editors to fix the way you write if it needs fixing." It's time for a resurgence of the grey zone, a space for us to think, a place to criticize ourselves and the world around us without telling anybody what to think, literature that's bold, showing our flaws, to prove we're human. Nowadays the literature published today is a 'how perfect can I be' contest. If we want modern literature to inspire again, it's not going to be the big companies to revolutionize it, it has to start from the ground up, by the people who aren't in an ungodly amount of debt to keep the company alive. I can understand why these big publishers aren't taking risks, it's a mirror of what our society has become. But your post proves there's space for literature to exist today. Thank you for sharing your thoughts mate!
Since you bring up the money factor, I do have a thought about this... This isn't anything anyone really wants to talk about, but I think a few rich patrons could easily inject new life into the literary world. There are a ton if great works of literature being put out by small presses every year. Any given one of these works, which now maybe sell a few hundred copies at best, could quickly become a bestseller and a household name with the right marketing budget. Warner Bros. spent around $150 million to market the Barbie movie. Imagine if a rich patron-of-the-arts, just for the hell of it, spent $150 to market an indie novel? Assuming it's actually a halfway decent book, it would become a sensation. Do this for 25 indie authors and suddenly there's a new generation of talent.
I often return to the work of the contemporary Neo-decadents, such as Justin Isis. Much of their thinking is that this tradition has moved definitively outside of the US by necessity, and most are unwilling to look beyond.
I think we also rely too much on a general transgressive form, which as you point out relies too much on sex and drugs which are safe these days.
What is actually transgressive today? is probably the question we should be asking in a society where the status quo is amorphous and structural and morality a cacophony without center.
That's an interesting point about the need to look outside the US. I recently discovered the director Miguel Llansó, who's from Spain and films mostly in Ethiopia. His films feel totally fresh and exciting to me, largely I think because he's clearly not a Hollywood filmmaker.
I'm not familiar with Justin Isis but just looked him up and see he's in Japan. I'll have to read him.
This may be the thing to do: Leave the US to tap into new ways of looking at the world and culture.
I think that part of the push out of ostensible “woke” culture, which I always viewed as more of a strawman or a facade of neoliberalism that bastardizes critical theory and actual politics of dissent, will be a return for a moment to gestures towards non-representational cultural synthesis in art.
Instead of old synthetic stuff, like the hippie religions that took top level religious symbolism, I think transnational integrations of more underground or niche internet stuff might be combined in novel ways. This is central to the Neo-decadent program.
I think we also forget that the outlaw fiction happened concurrently with a profound sense of American optimism at the time, and that general American optimism seems to be lacking now. Maybe the next great wave of outlaw literature may come from somewhere like China. I think the reemphasis on Black and post colonial literature that was being written but ignored in mid-century was a great result of the 2010-2020 moment, and that this tradition, of reintegrating politics into literature explicitly, as opposed to the post-Flaubert art for art sake/dilettante genius style, shouldn’t be thrown out with the bath water of “wokeism”
I'm so late to this particular party, but the post has had me thinking about it all afternoon. An outlaw genre implies the presence of a law to break but we live in a pluralistic society rife with competing vocabularies with their own laws. Artists and writers largely face social consequences instead of state-backed obscenity statutes with serious jail time to back them up. If we're looking for outlaws in that sense, writers in South America and Russia are doing the fucking dangerous work. But at least in the US where social consequences prevail, violating one group's laws is often the price of admission to another group. I'm thinking of your example of BAPists: they revel in breaking one group's laws, which gives them status in another group. With that in mind, I don't think right-coded writers are necessarily more outlaw-ish than left-coded ones. It's hard to take right-coded figures seriously when they talk about being deplatformed or canceled but they do so from an equally powerful platform, just not the one they were on before. Aside from the major publishing houses who I'd agree are largely left-coded, are there other law-givers (for lack of a better word) you have in mind?
"Violating one group's laws is often the price of admission to another group." That's such a great point and very true.
I also agree the term "outlaw" in America is necessarily hyperbolic, since it's pretty hard to actually violate any law when you're just writing fiction. We can only really hope to violate mushy cultural/political norms.
In terms of taking right-coded figures seriously: I think in a sense we're forced to take them seriously to some extent because there is so much outlaw-coded energy being produced from the right right now. Regardless of whether or not they are able to jump to new platforms, the fact that they exist on the right at all seems unusual. For as long as I can remember, all the radical outlaws (like the people in the Outlaw Bible I mentioned) are all lefties. Meanwhile, modern leftists (and I'm basically one, btw) are unable to shock anyone with the old playbook (sex, drugs, atheism, and rock music), and when they try to shock with a new playbook (pushing polycules or or postmodern nihilism or sex changes or something) they come off as annoying and elitist rather than edgy and exciting.
Amen to the "annoying and elitist rather than edgy and exciting." The things I generally read or see from the left seem to scold more than shock, and if someone needs to have read and understood Frederic Jameson's work to understand a book, that book probably sucks.
A bit off topic, but I've seen some Irish novelists pushing back on some of the left's ideas. I'm thinking especially of Paul Murray's The Bee Sting where a gay male politician is speaking to a group of students and tells them, "Global apocalypse is not interested in your identity politics or who you pray to or what side of the border you live on. Cis, trans, black, white, scientist, artist, basketball player, priest—every stripe of person, every colour and creed, we are all going to be hit by this hammer. And that is another fact that unites us. We are all alive together in this sliver of time in which the human race decides whether or not it will come to an end. As the poet says, We must love another, or die."
I'll have to look up The Bee Sting. Sounds great! A surprisingly left-critical novel I recently read was Antkind by Charlie Kaufman. Probably my favorite modern novel I've read in a while.
Interesting... If the world were to become sufficiently authoritarian (as described by Douthat here in terms Andor) I could see radical artistic energy emerging on the left again. Interesting to think about.
Most literary “outlaws” are prominent men. Most follow a tradition of “bad boy” private school Brits. America’s Henry Miller to Jack Kerouac to Carroll’s Basket Ball Diaries celebrate the perverse often self-obsessed young man. charismatic bad boy lit and music performers like Dylan are known. Hey Laura Nyro? Bad girls in lit often die young, like Plath, performers do better. As the author of The Anarchist’s Girlfriend” and “Paradise Gardens,” collected in libraries at Stanford and Columbia and plays considered “too radical “ for a woman to write—i know being a lit bad girl is still taboo. Gay women have small press and niche followings. women of color get a shot, though not as accepted as bad girl George Eliot or Mary Shelley in their time. Colette pulled it off. But that’s France.
Today? Bad girls are squashed youmg.
I think I mostly agree... But I think this skews male in part because the word "outlaw" conjures images of Billy the Kid and Jesse James--the classic male wild west outlaws. So maybe the term "outlaw" isn't great when talking about contemporary writers who push against the grain.
But I will say that there are plenty of rebel-like female writers out there today. Check out my friend Rachel Haywire's books Acidexia and The New Art Right. They're overtly "outlaw" books that hit just as hard and raw as any of the male writers that are stereotypical of the outlaw designation.
https://www.amazon.com/Acidexia-by-Rachel-Haywire-2012-12-05/dp/B01F7XPT8M
https://www.amazon.com/New-Art-Right-Reaction-2018/dp/0648299678
Outlaw actually in the west included MaBarker, Calamity Jane and other “heroines” of disorder.
Men play squash too, and some of them like to eat it.
Garbage cookie cutter by a garbage writer ( yourself) who never heard of Ann Sterzinger
In Europe, we still have some outlaws like Houellebecq
Houellebecq is a good one... America doesn't really have a Houellebecq. He reminds me a little bit of William T. Vollmann, but only a little...
Good gosh--I was just about to recommend Michel Houellebecq. He's an absolute chimera. There's nobody like him.
And Karl Ove Knausgaard!
He's no outlaw
It’s no longer a culture suited to outlaws. Look at the great outlaw writers of the 20th century (such as the ones you mentioned)… These men had some serious flaws. Back then, we said “Okay, you can be a jerk and a great writer,” but now we’d boycott their publisher, pressure bookstores into dropping their books, harass their families on social media, etc. In other words, any great outlaw writer would quickly be cancelled.
Of course, there is Houellebecq, but the French have always had more tolerance for les enfants terrible.
Outlaws have always been unsuited to speak to the culture- but we do it anyway.
Yes. HS Thompson had paedophilic tendencies, abused hard drugs and had links to the CIA. I don’t think people would accept him, these days.
Your second point is correct. He certainly used and abused drugs, with cocaine being the worst offender. It ruined him as a writer. However, your first and third claims are idiotic and I highly doubt you have any proof whatsoever to justify them.
David's right, Dave
Have I found my people? I like this comment section. I've always written transgressive stuff and have never found a literary community where I feel my work really fits. I appreciated this article, is what I'm trying to say. It resonates.
Following you now.
I'm very happy that Jim Carroll is your lead photo. He's a huge reason why I'm a writer. And this quote is very accurate: "More often than not, controversial figures who come from the left are essentially the inverse of an outlaw: they offend the normie masses while keeping entirely within the good graces of the traditional publishing world."
Thanks, Sherman. It's cool to see you on Substack! It's interesting to hear that Jim Carroll was an inspiration for you. Now that you mention it, I can see the influence.
My YA novel is The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, a title that's an homage to The Basketball Diary.
Spot on! I got into Kerouac, Miller, Burroughs, Bowles and Bukowski as an antidote to the my English Literature A Level. After that were was no going back! I do still read Orwell though. I will look up The Outlaw Bible of American Literature.
Publishing seems so tied to commerce now. Which to me is depressing.
Although its worth checking out Fitzcarraldo Editions in the UK - they are doing amazing things!
Add to that list Lawrence Durrell in Black Book and Justine.
I'll check out Fitzcarraldo Editions. Thanks for the tip!
Give me a few years so I can cook a bit.
Do you remember the "High Risk" short story collections that came out in the 1990s? They seemed to be an attempt to keep the Outlaw traditions alive. I was in Journalism school then, while spending just as much time in the English Lit department and subscribing to the New Yorker, which seemed to have been taken over by John Updike who was boring me so often it seemed like a challenge of sorts. There were writers in the 1990s at the alt weeklies that kept the outlaw tradition alive. The "Hey Faggot" column in the Stranger was one. So what happened? The internet happened. Facebook happened. If you wrote anything "High Risk literary", the algorithm would make sure hardly anyone saw it. The more information we had at our fingertips the more we were the same, all staring into the cold tundra computer screens that looked much the same. And then the screens became smaller, and smaller and smaller.
The alt-weeklies have gone out of business, many of them. The one I worked for in Milwaukee was taken over by a Democratic Party acitivist, largely because independent journalism couldn't be trusted in elections, especially when written by Socialists.
Or something like that. There was only one Burroughs, and he influenced many. Only one Thompson, and anyone writing like Thompson is immediately sniffed out and told to go home and sober up. You're right - the drugs stuff isn't all that intersting anymore.
My hunch is that the Outlaws are out there, they're just not in the business of practical writing, the Outlaw business being highly impractical. Who would publish it anyway?
I'm not familiar with the High Risk collections but sounds great. I'll definitely check that out.
I think your analysis is pretty much right. I would just add that the rise of the internet also gave people new outlets for expressing themselves. People who might otherwise have been short-story writers found it more rewarding to spend their time blogging, tweeting, or making YouTube videos. It's much more rewarding to gain a large following on a social media platform than it is to publish short stories that hardly anyone reads.
Case in point: More people have read this one essay than than have read all my short stories combined. Even though (gotta say) my short stories are way fucking more interesting. Shameless plug: https://www.amazon.com/Before-Giant-Anteater-Peter-Clarke/dp/B0CTBWJL7B/
The High Risk anthology was critically important when it came out. Cover to cover bangers—it’s a great gateway to many good books and an era of writers. They published many books as well as an imprint of Serpent’s Tail. Or maybe it was a copublishing deal, I’m not sure
Track it down. Pick up Sapphire’s first poetry book they did. Absolutely brutal book.
I'll totally check that out. Thanks for the tip!
If you're competing for likes and followers and popularity, you're no outlaw, as you know. I'm sure there were many outlaw blogs that stayed obscure or died for lack of popularity. Blogging itself has died somewhat. Everyboy's a photographer, a caption writer, a digital creator. It's not necessarily bad.
Thanks for the story link!! I'll try to read it in the next few days.
There is a major difference between being a literary outlaw and a degenerate. An outlaw is shunned while degenerates get published... Big difference.
Of course. “Degenerate” is what they call an outlaw before nailing up the “wanted” posters and tossing the bullet notes in the trash fire.
> anyone writing like Thompson is immediately sniffed out and told to go home and sober up. You're right - the drugs stuff isn't all that intersting anymore.
The drug stuff was the least interesting thing about Thompson's writing - just the most obvious
Want to be a rebel, write beautifully of beautiful things! You will be hated by the left.
lol you'll actually just be hated by everybody
If you’re rebellious or subversive, if your aesthetic isn’t in line with that of the progressive women who work in publishing, then why would you want to become a writer? There are more obvious rewards to be gained elsewhere.
I think it's pretty common for people to feel called or compelled to write, just like some people feel called to make music or paint. I definitely feel this, as I've written basically every day since I was 14. Sitting down every night to work on a novel is my favorite part of the day, even though I've abandoned all allusions about ever selling a book to a major publisher.
I grew up like you, wrote every day as a kid, became a writer. I’ve published several books with major publishers and feel incredibly grateful. I just wonder, if I were 14 now, would I follow the same path? Or would I have found a different creative outlet? One that is maybe more inviting to teenage boys? But then, people aren’t rational. So hopefully young rebellious guys are still writing. And maybe some of their books will get elevated.
“if your aesthetic isn’t in line with that of the progressive women who work in publishing”
^^^It’s very much this^^^
Literally every agent on Duotrope (99%). Publishing any man perceived as an “outlaw” would quite literally go against the political ideologies of these publishers and probably be criticized as “platforming toxic masculinity” or some other jargon.
For straight white guys, who like the aforementioned “outlaws” and strive to join that lineage, it’s not going to happen until the people publishing things are more diverse.
A refreshing read! I feel you in every way, it's so easy to say modern literature is dead, but it's just hidden behind all the bullshit that's getting pumped into the mind-numbing-culture of today. I have been dealing with high profile publishers for the past two years and I kind of just gave up and decided to stick to self publishing, maybe I was an idiot but I refused to allow them to make me publish trendy self-help-crap. The industry of books is dying, economically, and the publishers who were once rich up to their eyeballs are getting poorer by the year since people don't read as much, and what is being consumed is almost propaganda from both extreme sides. Publishers are scared to publish true literature these days because it's difficult to market, hence why they care more about using social media presences to create a politically or identity driven book. I was at the London book fair three years ago and they said during one of the speeches, 'celebrity cook books' was the main focus that year, it was what was making money. Apparently the war had driven the paper price up and they didn't know what to do, so they were looking for safe bets. I once got told by a very famous agent, "As long as the publisher is interested in you, that's all that matters. We have editors to fix the way you write if it needs fixing." It's time for a resurgence of the grey zone, a space for us to think, a place to criticize ourselves and the world around us without telling anybody what to think, literature that's bold, showing our flaws, to prove we're human. Nowadays the literature published today is a 'how perfect can I be' contest. If we want modern literature to inspire again, it's not going to be the big companies to revolutionize it, it has to start from the ground up, by the people who aren't in an ungodly amount of debt to keep the company alive. I can understand why these big publishers aren't taking risks, it's a mirror of what our society has become. But your post proves there's space for literature to exist today. Thank you for sharing your thoughts mate!
Thanks Jay! Glad to hear this piece resonated.
Since you bring up the money factor, I do have a thought about this... This isn't anything anyone really wants to talk about, but I think a few rich patrons could easily inject new life into the literary world. There are a ton if great works of literature being put out by small presses every year. Any given one of these works, which now maybe sell a few hundred copies at best, could quickly become a bestseller and a household name with the right marketing budget. Warner Bros. spent around $150 million to market the Barbie movie. Imagine if a rich patron-of-the-arts, just for the hell of it, spent $150 to market an indie novel? Assuming it's actually a halfway decent book, it would become a sensation. Do this for 25 indie authors and suddenly there's a new generation of talent.
We’re out there, we just struggle to get published 😘
I often return to the work of the contemporary Neo-decadents, such as Justin Isis. Much of their thinking is that this tradition has moved definitively outside of the US by necessity, and most are unwilling to look beyond.
I think we also rely too much on a general transgressive form, which as you point out relies too much on sex and drugs which are safe these days.
What is actually transgressive today? is probably the question we should be asking in a society where the status quo is amorphous and structural and morality a cacophony without center.
That's an interesting point about the need to look outside the US. I recently discovered the director Miguel Llansó, who's from Spain and films mostly in Ethiopia. His films feel totally fresh and exciting to me, largely I think because he's clearly not a Hollywood filmmaker.
I'm not familiar with Justin Isis but just looked him up and see he's in Japan. I'll have to read him.
This may be the thing to do: Leave the US to tap into new ways of looking at the world and culture.
I think that part of the push out of ostensible “woke” culture, which I always viewed as more of a strawman or a facade of neoliberalism that bastardizes critical theory and actual politics of dissent, will be a return for a moment to gestures towards non-representational cultural synthesis in art.
Instead of old synthetic stuff, like the hippie religions that took top level religious symbolism, I think transnational integrations of more underground or niche internet stuff might be combined in novel ways. This is central to the Neo-decadent program.
I think we also forget that the outlaw fiction happened concurrently with a profound sense of American optimism at the time, and that general American optimism seems to be lacking now. Maybe the next great wave of outlaw literature may come from somewhere like China. I think the reemphasis on Black and post colonial literature that was being written but ignored in mid-century was a great result of the 2010-2020 moment, and that this tradition, of reintegrating politics into literature explicitly, as opposed to the post-Flaubert art for art sake/dilettante genius style, shouldn’t be thrown out with the bath water of “wokeism”
Thank you for this! I love those types. The hole-in-the-wall bar in Puerto Rico where Hunter S. Thompson wrote The Rum Diary is worth visiting.
Leftwing-coded literary outlaw (of a different sort) here.
https://www.amazon.com/18-Months-Memoir-Marriage-Identity/dp/B0BHTN37H6
Jim Goad
I'm so late to this particular party, but the post has had me thinking about it all afternoon. An outlaw genre implies the presence of a law to break but we live in a pluralistic society rife with competing vocabularies with their own laws. Artists and writers largely face social consequences instead of state-backed obscenity statutes with serious jail time to back them up. If we're looking for outlaws in that sense, writers in South America and Russia are doing the fucking dangerous work. But at least in the US where social consequences prevail, violating one group's laws is often the price of admission to another group. I'm thinking of your example of BAPists: they revel in breaking one group's laws, which gives them status in another group. With that in mind, I don't think right-coded writers are necessarily more outlaw-ish than left-coded ones. It's hard to take right-coded figures seriously when they talk about being deplatformed or canceled but they do so from an equally powerful platform, just not the one they were on before. Aside from the major publishing houses who I'd agree are largely left-coded, are there other law-givers (for lack of a better word) you have in mind?
"Violating one group's laws is often the price of admission to another group." That's such a great point and very true.
I also agree the term "outlaw" in America is necessarily hyperbolic, since it's pretty hard to actually violate any law when you're just writing fiction. We can only really hope to violate mushy cultural/political norms.
In terms of taking right-coded figures seriously: I think in a sense we're forced to take them seriously to some extent because there is so much outlaw-coded energy being produced from the right right now. Regardless of whether or not they are able to jump to new platforms, the fact that they exist on the right at all seems unusual. For as long as I can remember, all the radical outlaws (like the people in the Outlaw Bible I mentioned) are all lefties. Meanwhile, modern leftists (and I'm basically one, btw) are unable to shock anyone with the old playbook (sex, drugs, atheism, and rock music), and when they try to shock with a new playbook (pushing polycules or or postmodern nihilism or sex changes or something) they come off as annoying and elitist rather than edgy and exciting.
Amen to the "annoying and elitist rather than edgy and exciting." The things I generally read or see from the left seem to scold more than shock, and if someone needs to have read and understood Frederic Jameson's work to understand a book, that book probably sucks.
A bit off topic, but I've seen some Irish novelists pushing back on some of the left's ideas. I'm thinking especially of Paul Murray's The Bee Sting where a gay male politician is speaking to a group of students and tells them, "Global apocalypse is not interested in your identity politics or who you pray to or what side of the border you live on. Cis, trans, black, white, scientist, artist, basketball player, priest—every stripe of person, every colour and creed, we are all going to be hit by this hammer. And that is another fact that unites us. We are all alive together in this sliver of time in which the human race decides whether or not it will come to an end. As the poet says, We must love another, or die."
I'll have to look up The Bee Sting. Sounds great! A surprisingly left-critical novel I recently read was Antkind by Charlie Kaufman. Probably my favorite modern novel I've read in a while.
Saw this article and thought about your post. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/05/opinion/film-hollywood-andor-politics.html
Interesting... If the world were to become sufficiently authoritarian (as described by Douthat here in terms Andor) I could see radical artistic energy emerging on the left again. Interesting to think about.
Thanks for that recommendation. Just ordered!