You either were there or you wanted to be. The Freaks Came Out to Write is the definitive oral history of The Village Voice-a New York City institution. Roaming its cramped, chaotic halls were the people who had written the first stories about the Stonewall Riots and the gay rights movement; who had advocated for civil rights before it was mainstream. The Voice was the first to cover hip-hop, the avant-garde art scene, and the AIDS crisis with urgency and seriousness when other papers were dismissing it as "the gay disease." It invented new forms of criticism and storytelling, revolutionized journalism, and covered cultural and political moments, often long before big outlets like the New York Times did.