Gay Bar by Jeremy Atherton L review – a lurid, lerary night out | Autobgraphy and memoir | The Guardian

Contents:

• GAY BAR BY JEREMY ATHERTON L – A GOG OUT MEMOIR
• 'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE
• A MEMOIR ABOUT QUEER INTY, TOLD ONE GAY BAR AT A TIME
• GAY BAR: WHY WE WENT OUT
• GAY BAR BY JEREMY ATHERTON L REVIEW – A LURID, LERARY NIGHT OUT
• GAY BAR
• IN ‘GAY BAR,’ TIME-HOPPG SNAPSHOTS OF QUEER NIGHTLIFE
• AUTHOR JEREMY ATHERTON L ON HIS LIFELONG LOVE AFFAIR WH GAY BARS
• GAY BAR

GAY BAR BY JEREMY ATHERTON L – A GOG OUT MEMOIR

On Irish televisn news, the headl rmed the natn that Panti Bliss, a brilliantly articulate mpaigner, had arrived at Dubl Castle, as ed she gay was all the rage jt then. 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.

Photograph: Clodagh Kilyne/Getty ImagThe arrival of the big, loud gay venu Dubl me at the same time as other eedoms. In Barcelona 1975, when Fran died, there was not a sgle bar that was clearly signated as gay the cy. The explosn of gay bars both ci me wh mocracy.

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

” In gay bars, he beme someone on whom nothg was lost. “Gays, ” he wr, “n relax a gay bar, people will say, but I went out for the tensn the room. ”His book is also hnted by the dotted le the gay story, the gaps the narrative.

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. We were nsc the discs on the turntable may have e om the llectns of ceased gay men. ”But the ghosts his book are also those who created gay San Francis self, where there were 18 gay bars 1964 and “an timated hundred and eighteen wh a ”.

Atherton L registers the nostalgia that me wh all this change, quotg Fouult: “I actually liked the scene before gay liberatn, when everythg was more vert. 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.

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

”Atherton L wants to reimage a nnectn between “the goln age of gay” and the future.

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. London, 1986, was not a safe place for a visibly gay man like my twenty-eight-year-old self to be out alone after dark – or even by daylight for that matter.

”The closg of Atherton L’s favoure gay venu London seems to make the cy e alive for him. Gay Bar: Why We Went Out, Jeremy Atherton L. "We go out to get some, " wr Jeremy Atherton L his new book, Gay Bar.

GAY BAR: WHY WE WENT OUT

Gay Bar b memoir, history and cricism; 's a difficult book to p down, but that's what mak so readable and so endlsly fascatg.

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

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.

That kd of gay bar — all kds of gay bars, really — are danger of closg, Atherton L wr, due to the populary of datg apps and risg property sts.

He's ambivalent about the velopment, wrg, "I had to nsir whether gay bars promised a sense of belongg then lured to a trap.

GAY BAR

In a gay bar, am I penned to mory stat, swallowg drks that nourish my opprsn — have gay bars kept me my place?

" The prospect of losg gay bars leads him to reflect on their prence his life. 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. " He's also spired to dig to the past: "Enough time has passed that gay bars, once a surge, have bee monumental their own way.

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

" 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.

AUTHOR JEREMY ATHERTON L ON HIS LIFELONG LOVE AFFAIR WH GAY BARS

Throughout the book, Atherton L scrib the gay bars that he equented, and his scriptns of the tablishments are endlsly evotive.

GAY BAR

" 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. About the changg looks of bars before the turn of the century, he observ, "A new type of gay bar began to appear London's Soho the neti — airy, glossy, ntental.