A big shout out on a book where the subject matter, the gay bar, is close to our hearts.
Propulsive music and euphoric crowds; drag queens and go-go dancers; strobe lights, dark rooms and glory holes. Gay bars have long been sites of joy and solidarity, sexual expression and activism. But around the world, they are closing.
Atherton Lin draws from his experiences of clubs, pubs and dives in London, San Francisco and Los Angeles to trace queer histories. Gay Bar is an indispensable social history and stylish celebration of the institution of the gay bar, from the post-AIDS-crisis 1990s to today’s fluid queer spaces.
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‘[A] florid, lurid, powerfully brainy memoir of gay gallivanting’ Observer
‘Deftly combining memoir and social history with an effortless command of queer and critical theory, Gay Bar preserves and rehabilitates interior spaces’ Paul Mendez
‘This is exceptional writing’ Financial Times Readers’ Best 2021 Summer Books
‘A brilliantly written and incisive account of gay life’ Colm Tóibín, Guardian
‘A restless and intelligent cultural history of queer nightlife… Beautiful, and original’ New York Times
‘A detailed, frank and brilliantly personal account of the author’s life in gay bars’ Evening Standard
‘Gay Bar is a book that’s beyond impressive… Atherton Lin’s writing is both extremely intelligent and refreshingly unpretentious’ NPR
‘Electric, immersive, and impossible to look away from… an illuminating, sexy, vibrant examination of place and identity’ Buzzfeed
‘Deliciously frank and constantly thought provoking’ Attitude
JEREMY ATHERTON LIN was raised in California and is now based in the UK, where he studied writing at the Royal College of Art. His work has been published in the Yale Review, Literary Hub, the Face, the White Review, and the Times Literary Supplement. He is an editor at Failed States, the journal of art and writing on place.
