'Gay Bar' Tracks The Wave Of A Whole Culture — And One Life : NPR

Contents:

• A MEMOIR ABOUT QUEER INTY, TOLD ONE GAY BAR AT A TIME
• GAY BAR BY JEREMY ATHERTON L REVIEW – A LURID, LERARY NIGHT OUT
• GAY BAR BY JEREMY ATHERTON L – A GOG OUT MEMOIR
• IN ‘GAY BAR,’ TIME-HOPPG SNAPSHOTS OF QUEER NIGHTLIFE
• 'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE
• GAY BAR
• GAY BAR: WHY WE WENT OUT
• REVIEW: WRER EXPLOR GAY BARS AS REVOLUTNARY SPAC
• WHY OUR HISTORI WH GAY BARS MATTER — AND WHAT THEIR FUTURE MIGHT LOOK LIKE AFTER THE PANMIC
• GOG OUT OUT: MY LIFE GAY BARS
• GAY BAR: BOOK SUMMARY AND REVIEWS OF GAY BAR BY JEREMY ATHERTON L

A MEMOIR ABOUT QUEER INTY, TOLD ONE GAY BAR AT A TIME

AdvertisementSKIP Jeremy Atherton LWhen you purchase an penntly reviewed book through our se, we earn an affiliate 9, 2021GAY BARWhy We Went OutBy Jeremy Atherton LHistory, as is tght, is a straight le of domo fallg — the relentls clack of fact htg fact, an orrly que of aly stretchg on forever.

GAY BAR BY JEREMY ATHERTON L REVIEW – A LURID, LERARY NIGHT OUT

History, as is lived, is a reelg spiral of flight and return; the erative reawakeng of new selv faiar plac; a never-endg terrogatn of our own nfed and nfg motiv; a msy slather of dots on a graph where the center n be plotted only Atherton L’s betiful, lyril memoir, “Gay Bar: Why We Went Out, ” cloaks this lived history that learned history, examg an objective subject — gay bars — to create a highly subjective object: a book about his life, flensed down to jt the bs that ma past the chapter foc on one particular gay bar (jumpg om London to Los Angel to San Francis and back), s history and s place the trajectory of Atherton L’s life. Atherton L himself is renred only relatn to the bars he walks through; you’ll fd yourself hard-prsed at the end to say where he was born or how many siblgs he has (and you won’t re) Atherton L has a five-octave, Mariah Carey-que range for discsg gay sex. Like any good gay bar, this book has a bouncer, and his name is is Atherton L’s first book, but benefs om his extensive experience as an sayist and an edor of Failed Stat, a journal about plac.

“Gay Bar” is well crafted (which is pecially pleasg nsirg this is a memoir about stctur), wh a strong thorial hand that mak the rear feel refully shepherd through the text, even as Atherton L jumps s and ntents.

When he discs an important 1966 prott at the historic Greenwich Village gay bar Juli’, he c a New York Tim article to talk about the “tr of activists” volved — not realizg that the article left out a fourth man, Randy Wicker (the only one still alive, cintally enough) a half page later, though, Atherton L warns that spe the activist claim that gay bars “should be kept open to facilate knowledge passg between generatns, ” he himself had never really received gay wisdom “on a barstool. ” This book is not about history, the subject you study, but history, that thg you have wh that guy by the jebox whose name you n’t the fal chapter of “Gay Bar, ” Atherton L grappl wh gog to a new generatn of bars, created by very different forc, meetg very different needs. Luckily, his worst misadventure happened when a vulpe lad he brought home om a bar “proceed to rip apart my Amerin Apparel T-shirt om the V-neck” this brand-nsc anecdote reveals, gay inty is a sartorial and existential mefield: before you go out, you have to ci what to wear, which will terme who you tend to be that eveng.

GAY BAR BY JEREMY ATHERTON L – A GOG OUT MEMOIR

He valu the bars as arenas of egalarianism, even if the would-be skheads he enunters East End hangouts are often guilty of “homosexual chinery”, passg for hooligans bee they like the wardrobe; a crique of the post-dtrial enomy, he blam nsumer culture for refg inty as a mody and -optg gay men as “experts leisure and athetics”, prized bee they have sh to spend on ippery. Dpe his mercurial temperament, L’s aim is nobly humane: he urg habués of the bars to look beyond the stereotyp that dify gay sire and “to see one another as multidimensnal begs”.

IN ‘GAY BAR,’ TIME-HOPPG SNAPSHOTS OF QUEER NIGHTLIFE

Leo Varadkar, mister for health, soon to be taoiseach, had announced that he was gay, as did a former mister om the other ma party, as did a well-known TV news journalist. That day would not have been surprisg had all the bishops of Ireland arrived their fery to let know that they, too, wanted to jo our Gay Bar, a brilliantly wrten and cisive acunt of gay life Los Angel, San Francis and London, Jeremy Atherton L quot the cric Ben Walters on gay history that is “agile om fear and fettg, too often wrten whispers and saved scraps”. I imaged a walk that two men of my generatn – I me to Dubl 1972 – might do to revis the gay plac that have gone, such as The Gym, a sna jt a stone’s throw om Dubl Castle, or Ingno, another sna, much favoured by prits.

He wr about a DJ his 40s lled B Statn John who “played ecstatic sets of arne dis … He was there to bear wns, to ttify, g rare tracks om what he lled ‘the goln age of gay’, the perd between Stonewall and Aids. Some thgs give him the creeps, like a gay thrift shop: “I crged when I passed , imagg the store to be filled wh stuff svenged om the hom of ad queens … I hadn’t found a way to nsir the multifar story of my people – and to read wh, but not through, the disease. When they stop shavg, their beards “were perverted, their bristl perfumed wh the sudor of scrotum” gay group, observed San Francis, “uld be tected om a distance by the stk … Each of them seemed to have a magnificent ass and be wrg a book.

There were three bars that he and his partner lled the Triangle: “jolly Gee and Dragon, sordid Joers Arms and laid-back Nelson’s Head – a rpective five-, ten- and fifteen-mute walk om our buildg” wr well about another hntg the London years, the spectre of gay-bashg, quotg Neil Bartlett: “Those nights out were spirg – but the solary walks home were foolish. If you felt a twge of boredom (bon if you thrill to disheveled, elive, gamy), then I have a book for Atherton L’s “Gay Bar” is a rtls and telligent cultural history of queer nightlife. In the openg scene, Atherton L and his partner (rather regrettably referred to as the Famo Blue Raat, after the Leonard Cohen song) go out to a London gay bar, lookg for a ltle adventure, and enter a crowd: “Wh a kd of btal elegance, the group spread apart like the blas of a pocketknife.

'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE

Atherton L is a skilled rear of the signifiers of cloth and archecture, the fetishizatn of workg-class fashn, for example, and how the rise of AIDS fluenced sign cisns: “A new type of gay bar began to appear London’s Soho the ’90s — airy, glossy, ntental.

) Most jarrg, perhaps, are Atherton L’s efforts at mimickg the theorists he clearly admir, those sectns that e across as parodi of amic wrg: “If the word muny is ed a failure of vobulary — too broad, too utopian — perhaps the metaphor to bt replace is metaphor self”; “gay bars are about potentialy, not rolutn. He’s already told what he most miss about gay bars; how movgly he replit here, wh his wi, strobg tellect, enliveng skepticism, raslly allure: “Perhaps you uld ll a gay bar a galaxy: We are held together but kept om llidg by a fe balance of momentum and gravy. Atherton L's book starts off a crowd room a gay bar where he's gone cisg wh his partner, whom he refers to throughout the book wh the Leonard Cohen-spired nickname Famo Blue Raat.

He wr betifully about his llege days Los Angel, where he went to his first one, though he n't rell the name, wryly notg, "Of urse I n't remember my first gay bar — I was dnk.

GAY BAR

" That history clus the famo 1969 uprisg at the Stonewall Inn New York, but Atherton L also div to other, lser-known bars, cludg on that endured police raids meant to put gay people their place. " Atherton L explor topics like archecture and urban geography, as they relate to gay bars, betifully; he wr wh a real knowledge that's more than jt tellectual dilettantism. " Along the way, Atherton L dips to other topics related to the gay muny: the appropriatn of gay culture by straight people, mic, drkg, and the valu of the younger generatn of LGBTQ people.

And while succeeds on many levels, perhaps the most remarkable one is Atherton L's nstant qutng of himself, and the realizatns of how he's changed sce he walked to his first gay bar years ago: "Maybe, I thought, I'm a dis ball. His but book Gay Bar (2021) received the Natnal Book Crics Circle Award for Autobgraphy and was named a pick of the year by crics at the New York Tim, NPR, Artfom, Sp and Vogue. ENGROSSING –Kirk Reviews EXCELLENT –Booklist ESSENTIAL –VogueVOGUE * BEST BOOKS OF 2021CAPTIVATING –Publishers Weekly MASTERFUL –Shelf AwarensBEAUTIFUL AND ORIGINAL –The New York TimTHE NEW YORK TIMES * TOP PICKS OF 2021 BEGUILING –Electric Lerature GRIPPING –Boston ReviewGLITTERY, MAGNETIC –Gay TimGAY TIMES * BEST BOOKS OF 2021 GLORIOUS –Wnipeg Free Prs UNMISSABLE –JezebelSPY * MOST NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2021SPIN * 10 FAVORITE TITLESREFRESHING –Elephant STYLISH –The Skimm WITTY –XtraEXPANSIVE, EXUBERANT AND HORNY –AttuATTITUDE * BOOK OF THE MONTHLYRICAL –ArtfomARTFORUM * BEST BOOKS OF 2021PLAYFUL, HILARIOUS, AROUSING, SHOCKING AND CHALLENGING –The FaceA RICH TAPESTRY –Vany Fair A GRAND ADVENTURE –Associated PrsA KNOCKOUT –The Spectator GORGEOUS –The Whe ReviewTHE SPECTATOR * BOOKS OF THE YEARTHE WHITE REVIEW * BOOKS OF THE YEARRESTLESS AND INTELLIGENT –The New York Tim Book ReviewSOMETHING WORTH CELEBRATING –Lerary Review EXCEPTIONALLY WELL-CRAFTED –CBC SEAMLESS –The Harvard ReviewA DISPLAY OF A RICH SENSIBILITY –The GuardianTHE GUARDIAN * BOOK OF THE WEEKILLUMINATING, SEXY, VIBRANT –BuzzFeedFUNNY, BRILLIANT –Edge PITCH-PERFECT –QueerguAMBITIOUS AND INTELLECTUALLY PROMISCUOUS –The BafflerEXTRAORDINARY –Erotic Review ENDLESSLY FASCINATING –NPRNPR * BOOKS WE LOVE 2021UTTERLY UNIQUE –The Observer.

Gay Bar time-travels om Hollywood nights the 1970s to a warren of cisg tunnels built beneath London the 1770s; om chichi bars the wake of AIDS to today’s fluid queer spac; through glory hol, to Cris-slicked dungeons and down San Francis alleys. A brilliant, exhilaratg juxtaposn of memoir, social history, archectural analysis, shoe-leather geography and more penis than you n shake a stick at, GAY BAR is a study of the tersectn between sexualy and inty ma ncrete. I’m so glad that someone has wrten the five book about gay bars… but specifilly, Atherton L, who has ptured the subversivens and sexs that make the plac what they are, or tragilly, were.

GAY BAR: WHY WE WENT OUT

He is the thor of the Los Angel Tim btseller and Natnal Book Crics Circle Award wner Gay Bar (2021), selected as a book of the year by crics at the New York Tim, NPR, Artfom and Vogue. Through the gay bar as portal, we might enter plac where we n be the majory not the mory, plac where fantasy and bchery are ma possible, where inty and sire are heightened. It is, as far as I n tell, one of the only attempts at a cultural history of the gay bar, be a cultural history that is sexier and msier, bee L do not shy away om the visceral quali of gay bars.

In one memorable sectn, L scrib an unrground fistg club 1970s San Francis lled the Catabs, quotg the theorist Gayle Rub’s memory of : ‘Jt walkg to that room uld put a person a leathery mood’.

His prose do the same, smoothly wdg s way om the eighteenth century to the morn day, transportg to a pocket of gay history for a few pag then – snap (gay snap, naturally) – back to the prent. The book focs on mostly male spac, y – the thor is a gay man – but also asks bigger qutns, like what ‘gay’ means ntext, what mak a space ‘gay’ anyway, and how ‘gay spac’ shape our own ias about our sexuali.

REVIEW: WRER EXPLOR GAY BARS AS REVOLUTNARY SPAC

In fact, a good portn of L’s book is spent discsg how the gay bars of his life have ‘nsistently disappoted’, how the plac that are built for gay people have a way of makg feel like we’re not wele. L not how a breed of toxic hypermasculy has been enforced male-centric gay culture, as a means to elimate behavurs that might draw negative attentn: ‘Mascule – normal – men wh stealthy predilectns uld be visible and therefore beyond the law’, he offers, suggtg that the legacy of crimalisatn is partly rponsible for a ridual expectatn to look and act ‘straight-passg’.

Many of the gay bars he scrib are ‘not exactly what the term safe space brgs to md’, but beyond the femmephobia and racism, he wonrs aloud whether some of the dangers that n arise the spac might be worth holdg onto – and this is arguably the book’s strongt provotn.

‘People expect a book that’s affirmative, but ’s not, ’s problematic’, L recently said at GAY BAR’s onle lnch March 2021, acknowledgg that some queer rears might balk at the book’s primary foc on sleazy, male-only cisg bars.

WHY OUR HISTORI WH GAY BARS MATTER — AND WHAT THEIR FUTURE MIGHT LOOK LIKE AFTER THE PANMIC

But GAY BAR is often nostalgic about precisely the kds of gay spac that seem to be disappearg: the snas, pubs wh glory hol the toilets, or kky, dark clubs wh a sense of risk. Could we thk about the erasure of the spac as a mixture of all three of the above – part of the privatisatn or sanctifitn of gay culture that me as a rponse to the AIDS crisis, and that has been ongog ever sce – another act of assiatn, accelerated by the arrival of civil partnerships and same-sex marriage?

GOG OUT OUT: MY LIFE GAY BARS

Is the gay bar’s cle now bound up wh a new generatn’s mand for more clive, sober-iendly plac wh a foc on enthiastic nsent, which uld, turn, be perceived as another form of moral policg? He also laments the cle of the ‘retro’ or ‘basic’ gay bar – your G-A-Ys of the world, or their high street and small-town equivalents, although he acknowledg they have bee ‘blatant, an embarrassment, a blight’. In recent years, this particular type of gay bar has been closg across Bra, makg way for an era of more clive, rovg parti, which market themselv as queer rather than gay, attemptg to wele people om across the LGBTQ+ spectm.

GAY BAR: BOOK SUMMARY AND REVIEWS OF GAY BAR BY JEREMY ATHERTON L

In the fal chapter of the book, L travels to Blackpool to vis a clter of gay bars on the suggtn of his neighbours, the artists Rosie Hastgs and Hannah Qulan, who filmed the same venu for their 2016 vio work, UK GAY BAR DIRECTORY.

The film documents gay bars around Bra an exploratn of their gradual extctn and is several hours long, stchg together footage of bars that are almost always pletely empty, and shot after hours. When I watch the film, I thk about how many gay people I know who – displayg a kd of metropolan elism – would only vis the plac ironilly, or would dismiss the bars and the people them as too leral, too ‘basic’. Yet as L’s closg chapter on Blackpool explor, the good old fashned gay bar – specifilly those regnal areas or workg-class towns – is still a lifele to many: the (stunngly named) gay bar Peek-a-Booze Blackpool ‘seemed to perform multiple functns at once’, observ L, ‘village hall, workg men’s club, trans support group, senr cizens center’.

In patg the more ‘mastream’ gay bar as a bastn or a relic, both UK GAY BAR DIRECTORY and GAY BAR: WHY WE WENT OUT seem to suggt that, jt as the word ‘gay’ might have fallen out of fashn, the gay bar might be gog wh .