Born in New York City's black ghetto Harlem at the start of World War II, Samuel R. Delany married white poet Marilyn Hacker right out of high school. The interracial couple moved to the city's new bohemian quarter, the Lower East Side, in summer of 1961. Through the decade's opening years, new art, new sexual practices, new music, and new political awareness burgeoned among the crowded streets and cheap railroad apartments. In this edition of his autobiography, Delany calls up this era of exploration and adventure as he details his development as a black gay writer in an open marriage.