A review by just_one_more_paige
Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

challenging emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

 
I've been waiting on my audiobook hold for this one to come in at the library for a few weeks now. In a burst of near-perfect timing, I got the alert that it was ready to check out literally the morning after it won this year's National Book Award for Young People's Literature. Woohoo! 
 
Lily Hu is in her last year of high school in 1950s Chinatown (San Francisco), trying to figure out her plan for the rest of her life, as one does. But it's particularly difficult for Lily, living under the shadow of the Red Scare and threat of her father's deportation, the expectations placed on women by her family/culture and America at large, and the pressure of her own goals of working with space/rockets. And then there's the other thing...the thing she doesn't even really understand herself yet. But when she and her (new) friend Kathleen Miller sneak out one night to watch a show (a male impersonator) at a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club, Lily starts to realize that she'll have to fight particualrly hard if she wants to live this particular part of herself with full authenticity. 
 
Topically, I just want to say that I am thrilled that this novel won the YA NBA - I can say with complete certainty that I have never read anything bringing this time period and specific population experiences to the forefront in this way, either in adult or YA fiction. Relatedly, I want to say how hype I am that YA readers today have access to these stories, and that these stories are being recognized with such major awards, because there were no books like this that I can remember seeing/reading at an actual young adult reading age. Lo captured with such feeling the complex combination of identities that form the basis of Lily's reality: Chinese-American, female, queer, and living in 1950s America. Like I said, a perspective I don't think I have ever read from before, but it was layered and full and I got a wonderful sense of time and place as I read. Lily's daily experiences, from the "preparing for the future" classes in school to the Chinese-American picnic days to her conversations with friends and interactions with family to her adoration of her Aunt Judy (in her job as a human computer for a space/tech company) are set against a unique American political and Chinese cultural landscape. 
 
Lo also did a great job conveying all the pangs of first love, the highs and lows and confusion and intensity. This was particularly well done when considering how it was combined with the unsurety Lily feels about her attractions and wants in general, related to Kath and augmented by her conflicting/confusing reactions to watching Tommy Anderson (the male impersonator at the Telegraph Club) perform. Those internal pieces all just felt really, genuinely accurate. This all came together, with Lo's wonderfully smooth writing and well-paced plot development, to make an incredibly compelling story about the steep risks and losses that can come from choosing to live as who you are in environments where, for so many reasons and in so many ways, that is not allowed. Lo's novel sheds necessary light on the limitations of "conventional" 50s history, giving readers a tale of the buried lives lived in the confluence of budding feminism, race/political issues, the illegality of being queer. Lo's notes at the end add additional background/knowledge to this "coming of age as a lesbian Asian woman interested in science/math/space/flight in the 50s" narrative and I highly recommend reading them (and will likely look into further related reading of my own as well). 
 
Overall, this was an illuminating and achingly hopeful story. There is real power in the message that we all deserve to love and be loved in the way we want/need and I am grateful for Lo giving readers the chance to experience it. 
 
“It was like finding water after a drought. She couldn’t drink enough, and her thirst made her ashamed, and the shame made her angry.” 
 
“It felt as if someone had taken an eraser to her memory – to her very self – and rubbed at it, then blown away the remains.” 
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