Camp, Satire, and Serious Artistry in Carnival Krewsing
Unveiling the Muse: The Lost History of Gay Carnival in New Orleans, documents a heretofore obscure but significant piece of Crescent City culture. Howard Philips Smith, a Mississippi native who began writing about New Orleans gay life in the '80s, brings a journalist's attention to detail and a social historian's focus on lived experience to his account of "gay Carnival", from the '50s to the present. The product of two decades of research, including many interviews, Unveiling the Muse documents how a stigmatized but resilient social minority asserted its presence in New Orleans' foremost cultural celebration.