James McCourt is the author of multiple works of fiction and nonfiction. He is best known for his acclaimed 1971 debut novel Mawrdew Czgowchwz (pronounced Mardu Gorgeous) which is currently available with the New York Review Books Classics imprint. Queer Street: The Rise and Fall of an American Culture, 1947-85, published in 2003, was identified by The New York Times as an “heroically imaginative account of gay metropolitan culture, an elegy and an apologia for a generation.”