Any serious consideration of gay life from now on will have to reckon with the mature and extraordinary writers whose work has been brought together for the first time in Beyond Queer.

Edited and introduced by critic Bruce Bawer, this important collection serves as the clarion call of a new gay intelligentsia who are unbound by the lockstep formulas and hollow rhetoric of the past, and who are determined to think honestly and independently about the moral, political, and social questions raised by sexual orientation.

Most but not all of them gay, these writers disagree about many things, but they share a common frustration with ideologically out-of-touch gay-activist leaders and "queer studies" theorists, and a dismay with a puerile and counterproductive "queer" image that represents neither the lives nor the goals of most gay people.

Although these essays convey the individual reflections and highly distinctive sensibilities of each writer, this vibrant assemblage achieves a powerfully unified sense of purpose when taken as a whole. Together, they provide an intellectually rich demonstration that in the midst of today's increasingly polarized debates there exists an oasis of reason, determination, and maturity that bids to finally overcome years of culture-war strife.