Last Night at the Telegraph Club
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4.0 • 20 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the National Book Award
A New York Times Bestseller
"The queer romance we’ve been waiting for.”—Ms. Magazine
Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can't remember exactly when the feeling took root—that desire to look, to move closer, to touch. Whenever it started growing, it definitely bloomed the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club. Suddenly everything seemed possible.
But America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father—despite his hard-won citizenship—Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Hopeful future rocket scientist Lily Hu is living in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the 1950s. She’s trying hard to make a good name for herself and her family as the Red Scare blazes through the U.S., adding a potent dose of paranoid xenophobia to the existing racism. She’s so used to suppressing her feelings that when a bewitching girl named Kath brings her to a secret lesbian bar, she’s overwhelmed by the experience of a welcoming world beyond her own loneliness—and we get to experience that with her. Lily’s relatable and complex feelings about love and family feel incredibly poignant, especially since her struggles are still relevant to this day. Last Night at the Telegraph Club blends the excitement of young love with the suppressive atmosphere of the Cold War era, which adds an extra layer of danger to this intoxicating YA romance.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The year is 1954, and American-born Chinese 17-year-old Lily Hu, a rising senior at San Francisco's Galileo High School, discovers the existence of the Telegraph Club nightclub by chance: via an ad in the Chronicle featuring a Male Impersonator. Lily secretly gathers photos of women with masculine qualities; she's drawn toward "unfeminine" clothing and interests such as chemistry, engines, and space. Dawning recognition of her lesbianism comes alongside a budding connection with Kathleen Miller, a white classmate. But openly exploring queerness isn't an option—not with her mother touting "respectability," and society's limited perception of Chinese-Americanness as either "China doll" or "real American"-adjacent, and especially not amid McCarthyism—during which Chinese people, including those within Lily's close Chinatown community, are targeted as Communist sympathizers. As Lily falls deeper in love, though, she must work to balance the shifting elements of her identity with a landscape of sociopolitical turmoil that will resonate with contemporary readers. Lo incorporates Chinese food and language, appending explanatory footnotes for romanized Cantonese and Mandarin terms and characters. Smoothly referencing cultural touchstones and places with historic Chinese American significance, Lo conjures 1950s San Francisco adeptly while transcending historicity through a sincere exploration of identity and love. Back matter includes an author's note explaining Lo's personal connection to the story. Ages 14–up.
