A definitive history of New York's Fire Island examines how it has been a vital space in the history of queer America and a key influence on art, literature, culture, and politics. Poet and scholar Jack Parlett's account of Fire Island chronicles its influence on art, literature, culture, and queer liberation over the past century. Fire Island, a thin strip of beach off the Long Island coast, has long been a vital space in the queer history of America. Both utopian and exclusionary, healing and destructive, the island is a locus of contradictions, all of which coalesce against a stunning ocean backdrop. Now, Parlett tells the story of this iconic destination--its history, its meaning, and its cultural significance--told through the lens of the artists and creators who sought refuge on its shores. Together, figures as divergent as Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, James Baldwin, Carson McCullers, Frank O'Hara, Patricia Highsmith and Jeremy O. Harris tell the story of a queer space in constant evolution.