GAY BAR | Kirk Reviews

Contents:

• A MEMOIR ABOUT QUEER INTY, TOLD ONE GAY BAR AT A TIME
• GAY BAR BY JEREMY ATHERTON L – A GOG OUT MEMOIR
• GAY BAR: WHY WE WENT OUT
• GAY BAR
• NEW PAPERBACK: ‘GAY BAR’ AND ‘AFTERPARTI’

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. 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. As Atherton L remds , “disassociatn is a gay rual as much as any other.

“Gay Bar” danc on the edge of that third space between fictn and nonfictn, a space often rerved for poetry. 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 BY JEREMY ATHERTON L – A GOG OUT MEMOIR

“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.

GAY BAR: WHY WE WENT OUT

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”.

GAY BAR

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.

NEW PAPERBACK: ‘GAY BAR’ AND ‘AFTERPARTI’

” 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.