- Published: 11/02/2021
- ISBN: 9781783785827
- Granta Books
- 320 pages
Gay Bar
Jeremy Atherton Lin
‘Brilliantly written and incisive’ Colm Tóibín
‘An absolute tour de force’ Maggie Nelson
From leather parties in the Castro to Gay Liberation Front touch-ins; from disco at Studio One to dark rooms in Vauxhall railway arches, the gay bar has long been a place of joy, solidarity and sexual expression. But around the world, gay bars are closing. In the wake of this cultural demolition, Jeremy Atherton Lin rediscovers the party boys and renegades who lived and loved in these spaces.
Gay Bar is a sparkling, richly individual history of enclaves in London, San Francisco and Los Angeles. It is also the story of the author s own experiences as a mixed-race gay man, and the transatlantic romance that began one restless night in Soho. Expansive, vivacious, curious, celebratory, Gay Bar asks: where shall we go tonight?
£16.99
A brilliantly written and incisive account of gay life in Los Angeles, San Francisco and London... Atherton Lin's book is a history lesson, a travelogue, but it is also a display of a rich sensibility, a kind of autobiography using bars as its thread
Colm Tóibín, Guardian
I can't remember the last time I've been so happily surprised and enchanted by a book. An absolute tour de force
Maggie Nelson, author of The Argonauts
Each page made me yearn for the dance floor and made me think about our need for queer spaces. I'm so glad that someone has written this definitive book about gay bars
Amelia Abraham, author of Queer Intentions
Jeremy Atherton Lin on Granta.com
In Conversation | The Online Edition
In Conversation
Jeremy Atherton Lin & Kevin Brazil
‘My larger concern is that as we sequester online, our lack of imagination threatens to foreclose our respect for other people’s realities.’
