An indispensable, intimate and stylish celebration of the institution of the gay bar, from the post-AIDS-crisis 1990s to today's fluid queer spaces

'A brilliantly written and incisive account of gay life' Colm Tóibín 'Each page made me yearn for the dance floor... I'm so glad that someone has written this definitive book about gay bars' Amelia Abraham, author of Queer Intentions Propulsive music and euphoric crowds; drag queens and go-go dancers; strobe lights, dark rooms and glory holes. Gay bars have long been sites of joy and solidarity, sexual expression and activism. But around the world, they are closing. Atherton Lin draws from his experiences of clubs, pubs and dives in London, San Francisco and Los Angeles - and a transatlantic romance that began late one restless night - to trace queer histories. An expansive and vivacious celebration of an institution, Gay Bar is also a stylish, intimate exploration of what these spaces mean, how they are changing and what we stand to lose when they close their doors. 'Essential' Vogue 'Expansive, exuberant and horny' Attitude

"A brilliantly written and incisive account of gay life in Los Angeles, San Francisco and London... Atherton Lin's book is a history lesson, a travelogue, but it is also a display of a rich sensibility, a kind of autobiography using bars as its thread" - Guardian

"Gay Bar exemplifies the multidimensionality Atherton Lin admires: it's at once erotically gamey and intellectually playful, combining soft porn with social theory, semen with semiotics... utterly unique" - Observer

"Electric, immersive, and impossible to look away from... an illuminating, sexy, vibrant examination of place and identity" - Buzzfeed

"Playful, hilarious, arousing, shocking and challenging" - The Face

"Expansive, exuberant and horny" - Attitude

"A restless and intelligent cultural history of queer nightlife... Beautiful, and original" - Parul Sehgal, New York Times

"Gay Bar commemorates a way of life without reducing it to one thing or fixing it in time; rather, it revels in variety and incident" - Edward Behrens, Literary Review

"Gay Bar reads like a cult classic... Atherton Lin's writing vividly itches with the pulse, heat and chaos, the acceptance and rejection of gay nightlife" - Paul Flynn, Evening Standard