The 2020s, so far, have erupted in a profound culture quake, with little to tether individuals to the world before pandemic, uprising, and insurrection arrested the nation. The desire to be bound to a fixed place has, perhaps, not been so urgently felt in generations. As queer culture continues to expand and redefine itself, bars, nightclubs, bathhouses, and other venues have regained value, cherished as they haven’t been since, arguably, the days before Stonewall. In his slipstream memoir Gay Bay: Why We Went Out, Jeremy Atherton Lin extols the gay bar as the physical and symbolic center of the gay community it has always been, and as a location of communal identity, personal affirmation, and sexual hedonism. His tour through gay bars on the West Coast and in London, rife with sweat, funk, music, drugs, and sex, reminds readers of the personal and political necessity of gay men gathering, living, and loving out in the open, especially in perilous times.
Gay Bar: Why We Went Out by Jeremy Atherton Lin. Published by Little, Brown. The editor is Jean Garnett and the agent is Laura Macdougall. Gay Bar is a finalist for the Publishing Triangle’s Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction. The winner will be announced on May 11.