Moby Dyke: A Quest to Track the Last Lesbian Bars in America by Krista Burton
Remaining time: 4 days 15 hours
Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:
Pageboy by Elliot Page
'Can I kiss you?' It was two months before the world premiere of Juno, and Elliot Page was in his first ever queer bar. The hot summer air hung heavy around him as he looked at her. And then it happened. In front of everyone. The unthinkable. Here he was on the precipice of discovering himself as a queer person, as a trans person. Getting closer to his desires, his dreams, himself, without the repression he'd carried for so long. But for Elliot, two steps forward had always come with one step back.
With Juno's massive success, Elliot became one of the world's most beloved actors. His dreams were coming true, but the pressure to perform suffocated him. He was forced to play the part of the glossy young starlet, a role that made his skin crawl, on and off set. The career that had been an escape out of his reality and into a world of imagination was suddenly a nightmare. As he navigated criticism and abuse from some of the most powerful people in Hollywood, a past that snapped at his heels and a society dead set on forcing him into a binary, Elliot often stayed silent, unsure of what to do. Until enough was enough.
The Oscar-nominated star who captivated the world with his performance in Juno finally shares his story in a groundbreaking and inspiring memoir about love, family, fame - and stepping into who we truly are with strength, joy and connection.
Nonfiction, memoir
Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest to Track Down the Last Remaining Lesbian Bars in America by Krista Burton
Endorsement from submitter: "First off, the title is the best wordplay I've ever seen. Second off, this book has it all: queer explorations, funny annecdotes, serious questions, travelogues, lesbian bar culture, karaoke songs by The Chicks…. if you want thought-provoking AND humorous, this one's ur ticket."
A former Rookie contributor and creator of the popular blog Effing Dykes investigates the disappearance of America’s lesbian bars by visiting the last few in existence.
Lesbian bars have always been treasured safe spaces for their customers, providing not only a good time but a shelter from societal alienation and outright persecution. In 1987, there were 206 of them in America. Today, only a couple dozen remain. How and why did this happen? What has been lost—or possibly gained—by such a decline? What transpires when marginalized communities become more accepted and mainstream?
In Moby Dyke, Krista Burton attempts to answer these questions firsthand, venturing on an epic cross-country pilgrimage to the last few remaining dyke bars. Her pilgrimage includes taking in her first drag show since the onset of the pandemic at The Back Door in Bloomington, Indiana; competing in dildo races at Houston’s Pearl Bar; and, despite her deep-seated hatred of karaoke, joining a group serenade at Nashville’s Lipstick Lounge and enjoying the dreaded pastime for the first time in her life. While Burton sets out on the excursion to assess the current state of lesbian bars, she also winds up examining her own personal journey, from coming out to her Mormon parents to recently marrying her husband, a trans man whose presence on the trip underscores the important conversation about who precisely is welcome in certain queer spaces—and how they and their occupants continue to evolve.
Moby Dyke is an insightful and hilarious travelogue that celebrates the kind of community that can only be found in windowless rooms soundtracked by Britney Spears-heavy playlists and illuminated by overhead holiday lights no matter the time of year.
Full of intimate stories, from chasing down secret love affairs to battling body image and struggling with familial strife, Pageboy is a love letter to the power of being seen. With this evocative and lyrical debut, Elliot Page captures the universal human experience of searching for ourselves and our place in this complicated world.
‘Can I kiss you?' It was two months before the world premiere of Juno, and Elliot Page was in his first ever queer bar. The hot summer air hung heavy around him as he looked at her. And then it happened. In front of everyone. The unthinkable. Here he was on the precipice of discovering himself as a queer person, as a trans person. Getting closer to his desires, his dreams, himself, without the repression he’d carried for so long. But for Elliot, two steps forward had always come with one step back.
With Juno’s massive success, Elliot became one of the world’s most beloved actors. His dreams were coming true, but the pressure to perform suffocated him. He was forced to play the part of the glossy young starlet, a role that made his skin crawl, on and off set. The career that had been an escape out of his reality and into a world of imagination was suddenly a nightmare. As he navigated criticism and abuse from some of the most powerful people in Hollywood, a past that snapped at his heels and a society dead set on forcing him into a binary, Elliot often stayed silent, unsure of what to do. Until enough was enough.
The Oscar-nominated star who captivated the world with his performance in Juno finally shares his story in a groundbreaking and inspiring memoir about love, family, fame - and stepping into who we truly are with strength, joy and connection
“Those were some of the best times of my life, traveling to another dimension where I was…me. And not just a boy but a man, a man who could fall in love and be loved back. Why do we lose that ability? To create a whole world? A bunk bed was a kingdom, I was a boy.”
- excerpt from chapter 3 of pageboy by elliot page
"a path had formed out of the blue -luring instinct. a few knocks on the back of the closet. a portal to a new world. a fresh reality in which i did not have to abandon myself." Pageboy by Elliot Page.
Anita and Brian could play dress-up for
days, transforming themselves into ruffled duchesses and pink-caped
archdukes or bauble-laden Druids communing with old gods. Confines of
time, place, and gender melted away with these magical creatures in
matching flaxen pageboys.
Elizabeth Winder, Parachute Women: The Women Behind the Rolling Stones.
This was a brutal read and not just in the ways I was expecting. I was prepared for Elliot Page to talk about the queerphobia and misogyny that he experienced growing up and going through Hollywood. But I wasn't ready for the brutal mistreatment he faced almost everywhere he turned. He doesn't pull punches as he describes it, or the mental health struggles that he experienced as a result. It was hard to read.
I also struggled a lot with the structure of the memoir. I found it hard to figure out what events happened in what order, where Page was at emotionally. And the tangents into aspects of local history weren't always especially interesting. But Page does write with a simple, straight-forward voice that makes wading through this emotional book a little easier. Even though the subject matter is sometimes hard to swallow, the writing never is.
If you've ever been interested in Elliot Page's career or his journey as a queer person, you'll find something to enjoy here, just please heed the content warnings because light reading this is not.
elliot page does this really fun thing in his memoir where he'll be telling a story, for example the first time he got called a faggot, and pauses in the middle of that to tell the reader about a kind of random historical thing, like the great halifax explosion that killed over 1500 people.
Chapter 21 is short and sweet, maybe 2 full pages, its final two sentences “her visibility meant the world to me. I think about this as I walk through the world now.” Fucking hit.
I want to be visible for queer kiddos, young folks who haven’t been told it’s wrong yet or those who have, who might discover something about themselves later in life that’ll make a lot of things make sense. I want to and will be louder in my queerness, the second I am out of this house, and I am so excited for it.
