Jeremy Atherton Lin

Gay bars are closing. Is this the end of gay as we know it? A writer looks back at what's being lost. Strobing lights and dark rooms; throbbing house and drag queens on counters; first kisses, last calls; the gay bar has long been a place of solidarity and sexual expression--whatever your scene, whoever you're seeking. But in urban centers around the world, they are closing, a cultural demolition that has Jeremy Atherton Lin wondering: What was the gay bar? How have they shaped him? And could this spell the end of gay identity as we know it? In Gay Bar, Jeremy embarks upon a transatlantic tour of the hangouts that marked his life, with each club, pub and dive revealing itself to be a palimpsest of queer history. In prose as exuberant as a hit of poppers and as dazzling as a disco ball, he time-travels from Hollywood nights in the 1970s to a warren of cruising tunnels built beneath London in the 1770s; from chichi bars in the aftermath of AIDS to today's fluid queer spaces; through glory holes, into Crisco-slicked dungeons and down San Francisco alleys. He charts police raids and riots, posing and passing out--and a chance encounter one restless night that would change his life forever. The journey that emerges is a stylish and nuanced inquiry into the connection between place and identity--a tale of liberation, but one that invites us to go beyond the simplified Stonewall mythology and enter other, lesser-known battlefields in the struggle to carve out a territory. Elegiac, randy and sparkling with wry wit, Gay Bar is at once a serious critical inquiry, a love story and an epic night out to remember.

Why We Went Out

Gay Bar

I'll be honest. Initially this book wasn't for me. I'm not really sure why I kept going. But through a haze of casual vulgarity this book is a look into the true history of people experiences in Gay Bars before they were seen as acceptable and Camp was a Met Gala theme. Part personal memoir, part history essay this is an exciting and informative read that kept me turning the page just to see what was next. Where would his train of thought bring us? What would happen to them in the next chapter? What historical event would he tell me about next? What cubical or public space would be the setting for the next exhibition? With a ending that leaves you feeling like you've arrived home to see your childhood bedroom turned into a study, I truly felt like I was saying goodbye to what they recognised as a gay bar with them. Definitely recommend! 

Laoise Giblin

An intimate trip through queer history. "An absolute tour de force." ―Maggie Nelson Strobing lights and dark rooms; throbbing house and drag queens on counters; first kisses, last call: the gay bar has long been a place of solidarity and sexual expression—whatever your scene, whoever you’re seeking. But in urban centers around the world, they are closing, a cultural demolition that has Jeremy Atherton Lin wondering: What was the gay bar? How have they shaped him? And could this spell the end of gay identity as we know it? In Gay Bar, the author embarks upon a transatlantic tour of the hangouts that marked his life, with each club, pub, and dive revealing itself to be a palimpsest of queer history. In prose as exuberant as a hit of poppers and dazzling as a disco ball, he time-travels from Hollywood nights in the 1970s to a warren of cruising tunnels built beneath London in the 1770s; from chichi bars in the aftermath of AIDS to today’s fluid queer spaces; through glory holes, into Crisco-slicked dungeons and down San Francisco alleys. He charts police raids and riots, posing and passing out—and a chance encounter one restless night that would change his life forever. The journey that emerges is a stylish and nuanced inquiry into the connection between place and identity—a tale of liberation, but one that invites us to go beyond the simplified Stonewall mythology and enter lesser-known battlefields in the struggle to carve out a territory. Elegiac, randy, and sparkling with wry wit, Gay Bar is at once a serious critical inquiry, a love story and an epic night out to remember.

Fraser Simons

I struggle sometimes, to describe to someone why queer memoirs and biographies are so important and different than the typical. A queer person is, in their own way, their own monument of history. Gay Bars are generally transitory and not immutable pieces of historical context. All of that memory is in the gray matter and bones of the people whose queer journey and trajectory were there. There very presence in a space is, in a way, pioneering. The shape of gay and queer history is always the shape of the person who chooses to go to a space that is other.

In contrast, I think cis straight white culture, the mono culture can only co-opt and integrate in its effort to puncture and deflate anything different. The quintessential monument there must be the somewhat interchangeable brothers-in-arms raising of a flag. The culture can only raise a symbol of the country; of nationalism or the penetration and impingement of the norm into every space on the horizon. It is a mass indistinct. Unknowingly or knowingly in service to the status quo. 

How different and important it is to have queer history in print versus those monuments history loves so much. Tying a memoir of Lin’s personal history—constructing history itself with his participation and presence—to the spaces that are often subsumed and forgotten, for many never experienced, is both apt and genius. Lin himself remarks on how important it is to have other queer people in life to pass down this kind of memory. Codifying it in this way, for some many more people, must be important, then. Vital, really. 

On top of this, Lin has a knack for switching between the voice of his historical context and his personal experience. Combined with the predilection to discuss only those things I found to be interesting, there is really nothing I have to complain about. Some people, no doubt, will find the explicit sections sometimes Too Much. Even voiced by Lin, these meeting of bodies felt as important as the space they went to in order to enable the various acts. It’s sharp, matter-of-fact, and what happened. Sometimes it’s what Lin describes as a desirable reason for going there: Risky.

Gay Bar Why We Went Out

Reviews