Last Night at the Telegraph Club won the 2021 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. Malinda Lo’s latest novel is set in 1950s San Francisco, and tells a story of interracial lesbian love during the height of McCarthyism. On top of being a poignant coming-of-age story, Telegraph Club offers a tantalizing glimpse into San Francisco’s iconic gay scene.
The Telegraph Club is a lesbian bar complete with vibrant community and nightlife. And its top draw is Tommy Andrews, male impersonator. After coming across a picture of Tommy in a newspaper, seventeen year old Lily Hu is mesmerised. Emboldened by Kath, the cute baby butch in her math class, Lily sneaks out at night to see Tommy perform. And what she finds at the Telegraph Club opens her mind to a world of new possibilities.
In recent years, some people have grown frustrated that coming out stories are overrepresented in depictions of lesbian and gay life. But Lo’s book is highly original – so exquisite in theme and style that she seems to reinvent the coming out trope. And since so few lesbian books or films have an Asian-American lead, the character of Lily Hu goes some way towards filling that gap in representation.
Through Lily’s story, Lo shows the discomfort that comes with being part of two communities and fitting in neither. Though Lily feels great pride in Chinatown, it quickly becomes clear that being “a good Chinese girl” means being straight. And though Lily finds the freedom to explore her sexuality in San Francisco’s lesbian scene, she is repeatedly fetishized with the nickname “China Doll” and expected to know every random Asian acquaintance.
Telegraph Club will resonate anyone who has ever found herself caught between two sets of cultural expectations. But it would be unfair to dismiss this novel as an “issues book.” Lo’s insightful writing and understated prose create a spellbinding story. As this award demonstrates, she’s a writer at the very top of her game. Telegraph Club is gripping from start to finish, the stakes constantly rising.
The reader knows – as young Lily does not – that she can only sneak out for so long without being caught. And the last lesbian to be outed in Lily’s school became a pariah. It is impossible to read Telegraph Club without feeling invested in Lily, and her budding relationship with Kath. The two girls see things in one another that go unrecognised by everyone else in their lives. Lily takes Kath’s ambition of becoming a pilot seriously, and Kath nurtures Lily’s dreams of outer space.
Telegraph Club gives a delicious depiction of the hesitancy that comes with first love. And when that shyness is burned away by passion, it is utterly joyful. Gone are the days when sex was taboo in Young Adult fiction. The NBA panel of judges said the book “glows with desire and hums with sensuality as Sapphic romance flashes against fear and intolerance…. Lo beckons readers sentence by restrained sentence into this incandescent novel of queer possibility.”
And yes, it’s fun to read. But – more importantly – this frank depiction of intimacy between Lily and Kath helps to destigmatise lesbian sexuality. Throughout the book, Lily is aware that many see lesbian desire as “unnatural” or “deviant.” And while things have changed for the better since the 1950s, homophobia is still hurting young people.
Research shows that LGB youth are twice as likely to be bullied as straight kids, both online and within school property. They’re also four times as likely to have attempted suicide as straight peers. And so it’s powerful that Telegraph Club shows lesbian desire, lesbian community, and lesbian culture without shame; powerful that a proudly lesbian book could win such a prestigious award.
