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A review by jhbandcats
Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York by Elon Green
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
4.5
This is a sorrowful book about a time and a place where gay men were in the closet and being felled by AIDS. They weren’t important enough for police to take them seriously or for non-gay newspapers to mention anything about assaults or murders. It just wasn’t done.
The focus on New York City gives a feel for what it was like, living in an ostensibly liberal city while never able to be safe. The author’s compassionate focus on the victims and the friends who loved them shows how wrong it was that police departments did nothing about gay bashing for decades. Only when it was politically expedient did the politicians encourage the police to be at least somewhat sympathetic. When enough people started protesting the inaction, the city authorities finally created a liaison position between gays and cops.
Even then, cases were dropped and then forgotten when new homicides came along. It was almost fifteen years between the first known homicide and the court case. Other homicides weren’t investigated because some police departments didn’t think they were connected. The Rockland County Medical Examiner and the FBI mishandled evidence so badly that it couldn’t be used. The initial lack of interest and the difficulty of working in multiple jurisdictions overshadow the success of finding and jailing the killer.
Overall, a fascinating social history and a look back at how poorly gays were - and still are - treated.
The focus on New York City gives a feel for what it was like, living in an ostensibly liberal city while never able to be safe. The author’s compassionate focus on the victims and the friends who loved them shows how wrong it was that police departments did nothing about gay bashing for decades. Only when it was politically expedient did the politicians encourage the police to be at least somewhat sympathetic. When enough people started protesting the inaction, the city authorities finally created a liaison position between gays and cops.
Even then, cases were dropped and then forgotten when new homicides came along. It was almost fifteen years between the first known homicide and the court case. Other homicides weren’t investigated because some police departments didn’t think they were connected. The Rockland County Medical Examiner and the FBI mishandled evidence so badly that it couldn’t be used. The initial lack of interest and the difficulty of working in multiple jurisdictions overshadow the success of finding and jailing the killer.
Overall, a fascinating social history and a look back at how poorly gays were - and still are - treated.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Drug use, Hate crime, Homophobia, Violence, Grief, Murder, Outing, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic