The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of the Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture

You either were there or you wanted to be. A defining New York City institution co-founded by Norman Mailer, The Village Voice was the first newspaper to cover hip-hop, the avant-garde art scene, and Off-Broadway with gravitas. It reported on the AIDS crisis with urgency and seriousness when other papers dismissed it as a gay disease. In 1979, the Voice’s Wayne Barrett uncovered Donald Trump as a corrupt con artist before anyone else was paying attention. It invented new forms of criticism and storytelling and revolutionized journalism, spawning hundreds of copycats. With more than 200 interviews, including with two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Colson Whitehead, cultural critic Greg Tate, gossip columnist Michael Musto, feminist writers Vivian Gornick and Susan Brownmiller, post-punk band Blondie, sportscaster Bob Costas, and drummer Max Weinberg of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, former Voice writer Tricia Romano pays homage to the paper that saved NYC landmarks from destruction and exposed corrupt landlords and judges. This definitive oral history tells the story of journalism, New York City, and American culture—and the most famous alt-weekly of all time.