Gay Bar: Why We Went Out

So, in December, I entreated people to read queer history for the holidays on this blog. I took my own good advice and picked up a copy of Gay Bar: Why We Went Out at the library by Jeremy Atherton Lin.

Gay Bar comes complete with testimonials and was named one of the best books of the year (2021) by the New York Times, NPR, and Vogue. I stumbled upon it only last fall and finally curled up with it for the darkest days of winter—it proved illuminating.

The book’s blurb states: “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.”

Very few non-fiction books delighted me as this one did. Not only is it fiercely intelligent, but it ranges from the personal to the historical and back again in a lovely way. There are hot takes on queer history, the evolving role of the gay bar over time, and Atherton Lin’s candid recollections of what he did in the bars and what they meant to him. In turn, readers—particularly gay men—reflect on what gay bars mean to them. Why we went out becomes why did I go out and how did it form me?

Jeremy Atherton Lin, like myself, is Generation X. Last weekend, Jeff Gordinier opined in The Globe and Mail: “At a time when apocalyptic fires and floods threaten to obliterate entire cities, it is encouraging to see Gen Xers stepping into the role of griot, determined to keep songs and stories alive.” As a griot (or storyteller), Atherton Lin fulfills this mission, even making the reader a complimentary soundtrack to accompany Gay Bar—virtually every song mentioned in the book.

I took note of historical references that I want to follow up on, like Robert Duncan’s 1944 essay “The Homosexual in Society” and the confident 1950s lesbian and gay bar Mary’s First and Last Chance in Oakland, California.

Gay Bar delightfully defies genre. Autobiography becomes historical treatise becomes social commentary, and the patois of our community—even the word “community”—gets scrutinized in Atherton Lin’s perceptive musings. His gaze on the gays transcends time zones and decades; it’s as if he is haunting the gay bar of our collective dreams, a club where we have all been and the place we wish to go back to.

{KA}