Gay Bar: Why We Went Out -- Jeremy Atherton Lin

<b>As gay bars continue to close at an alarming rate, a writer looks back to find out what's being lost in this indispensable, intimate, and stylish celebration of history.</b> <p/>One of the <i>New York Times</i> Critics' Top Books of 2021 <p/>An indispensable, intimate, and stylish celebration. "<i>Gay Bar</i> is an absolute tour de force." (Maggie Nelson) <p/>"Beautiful . . . Atherton Lin has a five-octave, Mariah Carey-esque range for discussing gay sex." -<i>New York Times Book Review</i> <p/>Strobing lights and dark rooms; throbbing house and drag queens on counters; first kisses, last call: the gay bar has long been a place of solidarity and sexual expression--whatever your scene, whoever you're seeking. But in urban centers around the world, they are closing, a cultural demolition that has Jeremy Atherton Lin wondering: What <i>was</i> the gay bar? How have they shaped him? And could this spell the end of gay identity as we know it? <p/>In <i>Gay Bar, </i> 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