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This book provides a detailed outline of the stonewall riots, introducing the streets, the activists, the bar, the mafia, the violence, and the humour. The book is limited in its coverage of the role of lesbians in Stonewall before and after the riots (perhaps this is in another book or should be written or is covered in full in this book?). Despite this the book provides a perspective on an important historical event, outlining the important roles that the marginalised sub-groups of the community played- the street kids, queens, and nellies. It also provides an interesting outline of the role of the media in helping and hindering the movement and how activist used it as a tool.

“As the TPF met with a number of high ranking police officers at Grenneich Avenue and Christopher Street, the crowd sporadically tossed beer cans at their vans and cars. Without any warning, two police officers rushed into the crowd, plucked a youth from it at random…and carried him off to a patrol wagon. As they did so, while the two arresting officers still held the young man, four other police officers began to pound the boy’s face, stomach, and genitals with nightsticks. A “high shrill voice” yelled, “Save our sister!” and there was a heavy pause, during which…the ‘butch’ looking ‘numbers’ looked distracted.” Then “momentarily, fifty or more homosexuals who would have to be described as ‘nelly’, rushed the cops and took the boy back into the crowd”. Like the Red Sea, which parted to let the Hebrews escape Pharaoh’s army only to then close itself against that same army, the queens “formed a solid front and refused to let the cops into the crowd to regain their prisoner, letting the cops hit them with their sticks, rather than let them through.”

“Soon scores of gay New Yorkers would find a piece of paper thrust in tier hands that asked: “Do You Think Homosexuals Are Revolting?”. The same flyer rejoined: “You Bet Your Sweet Ass We Are”

“Ironically, Randy Wicker, the homophile movement’s first East Coast militant, had been horrified by the riots. For years he had worked hard to counter stereotypical portrayals of homosexual men, and the reports he heard of the riots sounded like his worst nightmare come true: effeminate boys were in the streets camping it up while drag queens joined gay men in a chorus line to kick their heels at cops and others set trash cans on fire. And they were getting more press than Randy had received even on his best day.”