Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
5/5
Although Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo had been on my radar for a while, it took a friend recommending it for me to finally decide to read it. Despite my love of history, I don't normally go for historical romance novels. Although the 1950s definitely have more of my attention than the Regency era (sorry Jane!). What made me decide to read this book now was a two-woman book club I've started with my mom! This is the book we've kicked it off with and I'm excited to talk to her about it soon!
Last Night at the Telegraph Club takes the audience through Lily Hu's senior year of high school. It's the 1950s and the Red Scare is making everyone paranoid and unsafe, especially those in San Francisco's Chinatown. With unfortunate timing, Lily starts to get close to her classmate, Kathleen Miller. She's an Italian girl from a conservative family. Together they attend the Telegraph Club, a nightclub featuring a male impersonator. They've both known they like girls, but having this community and each other changes their lives. Unfortunately due to the McCarthy era, it's not always for the better.
I absolutely loved the history aspect of Last Night at the Telegraph Club! Events, culture, and language were heavily researched for the book. The author's note gives a deeper dive into Lo's research, so please read that if you choose to read this book. However, even without the note, I could tell that a lot of work went into research. It could have been contemporary to the 50s! I learned a lot about queer culture and Chinese-American culture thanks to Lo. Throughout the novel, timelines are provided to give context on what the reader needs to know for the section that follows. It uses both historical events and things that happened in the characters' lives. It also occasionally jumped to the perspectives of others in the Hu family, all sometime before the novel's present day. If I'm going to read history, these are the kinds of things I'm a sucker for.
Should you choose to read Last Night at the Telegraph Club, you'll be getting a lot more than just a WLW romance. You'll be getting all the context that goes along with a 17-year-old Chinese-American girl discovering her sexuality during the Red Scare. There are terms that are no longer acceptable that were commonly used then. One couldn't discuss homosexuality openly, so coded words were created. Everything had to be presented as problematic or a joke to be discussed openly at all. This was clear to me from Lily's experiences. I seriously appreciate learning about a part of history that's not normally taught, especially in a way that was so captivating.
I've barely scratched the surface of what Malinda Lo's Last Night at the Telegraph Club has to offer in this review, so there's plenty more for you to discover should you decide to read it. There's so much history and love waiting for you in those pages!
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