Paid Post: Book Review--"Deep House: The Gayest Lover Story Ever Told:
As he did in "Gay Bar," Jeremy Atherton Lin blends memoir and socio-political history in this fascinating and bracingly intimate portrait of a gay international relationship.
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I remember being blown away a few years ago by Jeremy Atherton Lin’s Gay Bar: Why We Went Out. It was one of those queer books that wasn’t afraid to be raw and deeply personal, that didn’t shy away from some of the more prurient and earthy details of gay sex and gay desire. Now Lin is back with an even more deeply personal and political book, one which further chronicles his relationship with his then-boyfriend (and now husband) Famous, particularly as their relationship intersected with the movement for marriage equality and the rights, including immigration, that come with it.
As he did with Gay Bar, Lin combines autobiography and memoir with a larger look at the world of the 1990s and 2000s, when gay marriage was a hotly-contested topic in both the US and in Famous’ home country of the UK. As a result, we get a rich and deep sense of the way that these debates were not merely academic. They had real-world impacts on couples like Lin and Famous and for many others like them, who desperately need its protections in order to avoid deportation. At the same time, Lin also discusses many of the key cases that shaped gay rights activism and advocacy from the 1970s and into the 2010s, including such landmark cases as Lawrence v. Texas (which was even messier than the news would have us believe, as Lin makes abundantly clear).