"Larry Kramer is one of America's most valuable troublemakers. I hope he never lowers his voice," Susan Sontag has been quoted as saying, in the introduction to the 1993 Playboy interview with Larry Kramer. His accomplishments as a dramatist and screenwriter have frequently been overshadowed by his potent political activism on behalf of gay rights and the AIDS crisis; however, the influence of his two finest dramatic works, The Normal Heart (1985) and The Destiny of Me (produced 1992; published 1993), on late-twentieth-century gay-related drama is significant.

Gay-rights activist, screenwriter, and playwright Kramer was born 25 June 1935 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of George Leon Kramer and Rea Sara Wishengrad Kramer. Both sets of Kramer's grandparents owned and operated grocery stores, but his paternal grandmother managed to put her two sons, including Kramer's father, through Yale University. At the time of Kramer's birth, his father was an unemployed lawyer who lived away from...