A kinetic bar crawl through space and time and subculture. . . . Gay Bar feels like a love letter, and of the realest sort — one that expresses devotion through piercing, sustained attention, that takes delight in negotiating.” —BUZZFEED
“[A] diamond of a book; its milky imperfections streak through the text like a hot load shot across a greedy, gorgeous face…Gay Bar elides categories, determined to queer gender and genre alike, smearing even this commonplace with a sweaty, gropey touch…Atherton Lin’s thick description of this mélange works the magic of a Proustian madeleine. This is, in part, because he writes the way gay culture looks and feels: he is both evasive and effervescent…But Atherton Lin is after something more: the glam camp of undiluted faggotry. This is writing as drag, and it aims at times to be just as tawdry and exhibitionist.” —THE BAFFLER
“With his incisive, kinetic prose, Atherton Lin fuses together memoir, travelogue and history lessons, turning a lifetime of bar hopping into a richly queer palimpsest… Right now, when most bars are closed, Atherton Lin is the friend you cannot wait to have sitting on the barstool next to you when they reopen. Brilliant, intelligent and witty, Gay Bar will intoxicate you until they do.”—WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
“A refreshing glimpse into the sweaty glory of the humble queer haven we’ve missed in the last year…If you’re looking for an honest and visceral reading experience, Gay Bar really is the book for you.” —GAY TIMES
“Atherton Lin takes us on a journey threaded by his own heady experiences, reflecting with unbridled sexual honesty on the role various gay bars played. Always unvarnished – appropriately salacious – the gay ‘scenes’ of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and London come to life, rich with smell, taste, tribalism, and always a frisson of sexual tension…This is exceptional writing.” —FINANCIAL TIMES
“Filled with well-researched history, entertaining personal anecdotes, and a healthy dose of queer theory…a well-timed reminder of who we become when we’re surrounded by our own people.” —QUEERTY (Best Holiday Reads)
“I’m a year late, but Jeremy Atherton Lin’s GAY BAR was a knockout: a responsible history of places that at the time aspired to nothing more than a few hours of lurid fun and total oblivion. God knows how he remembered any of it.”—Philip Hensher, THE SPECTATOR
As gay bars continue to close at an alarming rate, a writer looks back to find out what's being lost in this indispensable, intimate, and stylish celebration of history.
*
In the era of Grindr and same-sex marriage, gay bars are closing down at an alarming rate. What, then, was the gay bar? Set between Los Angeles, San Francisco, and London, Gay Bar takes us on a time-traveling, transatlantic bar hop through pulsing nightclubs, after-work dives, hardcore leather bars, gay cafes, and saunas, asking what these places meant to their original clientele, what they meant to the author as a younger man, and what they mean now.
In prose as exuberant as a hit of poppers and as dazzling as a disco ball, Atherton Lin conjures the strobing lights and the throbbing music, the smell and taste of tangles of male bodies, the rough and tender anonymous encounters, the costumes and categories--twink, top, masc, queen, tweaker, tourist, voyeur, exhibitionist--all the while tracking the protean aesthetics of masculinity and gayness. Along the way, he invites us to go beyond the simplified gay bar liberation mythology of Stonewall and enter the many other battlefields in the war to carve out space in which to exist, express, and love as a gay man.
Elegiac, sexy, and sparkling with wry wit, Gay Bar is at once a serious critical inquiry into how we construct ourselves through the spaces we inhabit and an epic night out to remember.
*
In prose as exuberant as a hit of poppers and as dazzling as a disco ball, Atherton Lin conjures the strobing lights and the throbbing music, the smell and taste of tangles of male bodies, the rough and tender anonymous encounters, the costumes and categories--twink, top, masc, queen, tweaker, tourist, voyeur, exhibitionist--all the while tracking the protean aesthetics of masculinity and gayness. Along the way, he invites us to go beyond the simplified gay bar liberation mythology of Stonewall and enter the many other battlefields in the war to carve out space in which to exist, express, and love as a gay man.
Elegiac, sexy, and sparkling with wry wit, Gay Bar is at once a serious critical inquiry into how we construct ourselves through the spaces we inhabit and an epic night out to remember.
*
Gay Bar: Why We Went Out
As gay bars continue to close at an alarming rate, a writer looks back to find out what's being lost in this indispensable, intimate, and stylish celebration of history.
*
In the era of Grindr and same-sex marriage, gay bars are closing down at an alarming rate. What, then, was the gay bar? Set between Los Angeles, San Francisco, and London, Gay Bar takes us on a time-traveling, transatlantic bar hop through pulsing nightclubs, after-work dives, hardcore leather bars, gay cafes, and saunas, asking what these places meant to their original clientele, what they meant to the author as a younger man, and what they mean now.
In prose as exuberant as a hit of poppers and as dazzling as a disco ball, Atherton Lin conjures the strobing lights and the throbbing music, the smell and taste of tangles of male bodies, the rough and tender anonymous encounters, the costumes and categories--twink, top, masc, queen, tweaker, tourist, voyeur, exhibitionist--all the while tracking the protean aesthetics of masculinity and gayness. Along the way, he invites us to go beyond the simplified gay bar liberation mythology of Stonewall and enter the many other battlefields in the war to carve out space in which to exist, express, and love as a gay man.
Elegiac, sexy, and sparkling with wry wit, Gay Bar is at once a serious critical inquiry into how we construct ourselves through the spaces we inhabit and an epic night out to remember.
*
In prose as exuberant as a hit of poppers and as dazzling as a disco ball, Atherton Lin conjures the strobing lights and the throbbing music, the smell and taste of tangles of male bodies, the rough and tender anonymous encounters, the costumes and categories--twink, top, masc, queen, tweaker, tourist, voyeur, exhibitionist--all the while tracking the protean aesthetics of masculinity and gayness. Along the way, he invites us to go beyond the simplified gay bar liberation mythology of Stonewall and enter the many other battlefields in the war to carve out space in which to exist, express, and love as a gay man.
Elegiac, sexy, and sparkling with wry wit, Gay Bar is at once a serious critical inquiry into how we construct ourselves through the spaces we inhabit and an epic night out to remember.
*
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Editorial Reviews
Product Details
BN ID: | 2940177623559 |
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Publisher: | Hachette Audio |
Publication date: | 02/09/2021 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
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