She paused, then eyed the cowboy next to her. “You’re up!” Jerry Bell stepped to the stage, clad head-to-toe in denim with a white, curlicued horseshoe moustache. A guitar hung over his shoulder, held ...

Marginality, mass death—these are just a few of the reasons why the oeuvre of Essex Hemphill, who died of the virus in 1995, ...