English / USA
Last night at the Telegraph Club
Lo, Malinda
(text)
New York: Dutton Books, [2021]. – 409 p.
ISBN 978-0-525-55525-4
Falling in love | Gender role | Historical fiction | Racism | Sexuality | History 1950s | LGBTQ+ | North-American Chinese | San Francisco
Reading age: 14+
White Ravens issue: 2022
Acclaimed author Malinda Lo’s latest offering is a sensitive queer young adult novel set in the Chinese-American community in San Francisco in the 1950s. Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu has always been the dutiful daughter and diligent student her parents expected her to be. Yet lately, she has started wondering about her friendships, her future life, and her place in the world beyond her Chinatown neighbourhood. When she befriends Kath, a white classmate, Lily finally dares to question society’s conservative notions about same-sex love and hesitantly explores her own sexuality. However, with homophobic micro-aggressions, open racism, and the looming threat of her father’s deportation due to the so-called »red scare«, living their budding love is risky for the two young women. The author brilliantly chronicles her protagonist’s tentative coming-out and also provides a wealth of background matter in the Hu-family flashbacks and in her afterword, painting a vibrant picture of the American post-war society. [CS]