... provocative and fascinating ... It is interesting to see a shift from the early gay and lesbian scholarship to a new generation of vibrant queer historical writing. Ryan’s perspective is expansive. He is attuned to issues of queer diversity, as well as to gender, sex, and feminist theory, and he keeps a steady contemporary eye on the flawed narrative assumptions and rush to conclusion that plagued prior historical writings ... a rich journey through the birth, decline, and rebirth of a distinct queer community ... Ryan vividly reconstructs an entire lost past...Ryan’s scholarship turns up an abundance of riches ... By demystifying the process of historical research and maintaining a robust self-awareness and open point of view, Ryan’s study stays extremely welcoming and inclusive. His metanarrative, like all good history writing, brings the past vividly alive and makes us excited to learn more about who we were, are, and possibly may be in the future in this dynamic, evolving city many of us call home.
... boisterous ... When Ryan then turns to Brooklyn’s queer bard Walt Whitman in Chapter 1, he has a little trouble getting his bearings ... Ryan hits his stride once he reaches the late 19th century, however, and by Chapter 2 the book has become an entertaining and insightful chronicle ... As distinctively colorful as these lives were, they were powerfully shaped by institutions, Ryan’s history shows.
Happily, his new book brings many of those pieces together in a fascinating portrait of gay life in Brooklyn ... A number of celebrated creative types figure prominently, and Ryan gives generous attention to the likes of poets Hart Crane, W. H. Auden, and Marianne Moore ... Bringing them alive again is one of the valuable services Ryan’s fine work contributes to queer history.
...a funny, tender and disturbing history of LGBT life ... The book is studded with the stories of Brooklyn-based A-list gays of yesteryear: Walt Whitman, Hart Crane, Truman Capote ... the book also excels in uncovering what life was like for 'ordinary' queer folk ... One of the fascinating aspects of the book is how accepted the queer community was in Brooklyn at certain periods (and by certain people) ... There’s probably no better time for us to relearn Brooklyn’s queer history.
When Brooklyn Was Queer achieves everything one could want in a history: meticulous research, easy-reading narrative, fascinating small events within significant larger ones, and personal interest ... Painstaking research and attention to detail highlight the richness and mystery of stories that have been largely hidden until now. Ryan is careful to point out the challenges of this kind of research ... Ryan is sensitive to the intersecting limitations faced by women and people of color ... a compelling, essential read.
It’s a satisfying retort to the idea that there was nothing queer there before ... A hungry archivist, Hugh Ryan unearths vivid material to populate this story ... Ryan takes care to note that 'racist and misogynist structural realities meant that even at its outset, American queer life developed in splintered pockets' ... At times this drives him to too modest conclusions ... The archival discoveries that Ryan has made, however, evoke a world of affection and pleasure that is at odds with the prevailing story that sexual liberation only began in the 1960s ... Ryan’s history posits that the urban world of prewar Brooklyn produced a certain kind of queer, and that postwar suburbia enforced a kind of forgetting. The prodigal return of the suburban queer to the city is often underwritten by the promise of redeeming a sense of unclaimed belonging, and Ryan’s archaeology successfully seems to notarize it ... I felt a warmth reading about these forgotten lives, which left an infinity of traces on the same streets I walk, though the frame Ryan operates with presumes that everyone else had forgotten, too.
... a well-designed web knitting history together with the story of Brooklyn, NY—before it became a borough and after—and the lives and experiences of the queer people who populated the community ... One of the most interesting aspects of Ryan’s work is his deep research into queer individuals whose lives intertwined with Brooklyn’s growth ... In When Brooklyn Was Queer, Ryan digs deeper into both the history of Brooklyn, and its queer community more than any other book ... For those who know little or nothing about either topic, this will be a fascinating read and a learning experience. For those who are familiar with both topics, it will be an acknowledgement of a topic all too often buried in the sands near Coney Island.
Employing a dynamic combination of meticulous research and impassioned prose, Ryan familiarizes readers with the precarious post–Prohibition-era atmosphere ... The author insists on its overdue appreciation, and he offers a richly evocative chronicle filled with notable queer game-changers ... With a sharp eye for detail and a knack for vivid re-creations, Ryan eloquently contributes to an 'old queer history' ... A romantic, exquisite history of gay culture.
...a lively, character-filled portrait and well-researched analysis of Brooklyn’s queer social landscape ... Ryan acknowledges that much well-known history focuses on cis white gay men and is careful to curate available materials about the experience of lesbians and black people, drawing from letters and reading between the lines of reports of crime or deviance. This evocative and nostalgic love song to the borough and its flamboyant past offers a valuable broadening of historical perspective.
