The Pride of the Bimbos is John Sayles's outrageous, poignant and hilarious first novel, about a circus sideshow softball team—The Brooklyn Bimbos—who play in drag at scraggly small towns across the South. The heart of the team—and the novel—is a midget and former private eye named Pogo Burns, who is pursued by Dred, an evil super-pimp whom Pogo had earlier shot in order to rescue a woman he loved. The Pride of the Bimbos is about Pogo's rise, fall and eventual immortality, a man who refuses to admit he's a freak.

If the U.S. were to boast one great independent film director, he would be John Sayles, a cult figure among his admirers. Nominated for both an Academy Award for scriptwriting and a National Book Award, Sayles has written screenplays, teleplays, short stories, and novels and has worked as a script doctor for a virtual who's who of Hollywood film and television talent.