Small Town Boys | Reading List by Lavender Menace
In Shaper/Caper’s newest dance show, Small Town Boys, a young queer man leaves his small hometown to find refuge in the bright lights and warm embrace of the big city; he discovers solace and joy in the city's LGBTQ+ scene, but soon finds tragedy tearing through his community in the form of the AIDS crisis, further suppressed by Section 28.
As part of Small Town Boys’ mission to platform queer stories and educate on queer history, Shaper/Caper collaborated with Lavender Menace Queer Books Archive to put together a reading list. The books on the list range through time, exploring similar themes of queer nightlife, club scenes, dance, and communities — both in and out of the AIDS crisis. Whether you were in the audience of Small Town Boys or not, the following books provide some vital context on this pivotal period of queer history.
About Lavender Menace
When Lavender Menace was opened in the 1980s, and 1990s as West & Wilde, it was as part of a burgeoning interest in lesbian and gay literature. They stocked bestsellers from independent lesbian and gay presses and large publishers began to offer openly lesbian and gay books. It was a vibrant time for both writers and readers.
After the success of James Ley’s play about the shop, Love Song to Lavender Menace, they decided to reopen as a pop-up bookshop with a new project – to create a queer books archive supported by a blog. Their aim is to help preserve copies of out of print queer books, some of which are now rare, and set up a physical archive to preserve them, and a database to list queer books and record readers’ views and stories about them.
The Book List
1. Gay Bar: Why We Went Out, Jeremy Atherton Lin, 2021.
Lin’s creative non-fiction monument to gay bars and nightclubs presents a loving yet critical glance over these disappearing queer spaces.
2. Love Song to Lavender Menace, James Ley, 2017
Available from Lighthouse Books.
Ley’s vibrant play delves into the history of Lavender Menace from a book stall in the cloakroom of a Princes Street disco to Scotland’s first LGBT bookshop, offering a glimpse of the creation, loss and revival of queer spaces in Edinburgh.
3. The House of Impossible Beauties, Joseph Cassara, 2018.
Available from Lighthouse Books.
A novel set in 1980s Harlem inspired by the lives of the House of Xtravaganza and the New York ballroom scene, it is a story about family and tragedy, and the joy in finding community.
4. Queer Spaces: An Atlas of LGBTQ+ Places and Stories, Adam Nathaniel Furman and Joshua Mardell, 2022.
Available from Category Is Books.
A glimpse of different queer spaces from around the world, past and present. Travel from an underground club in Edwardian London to a 24/7 queer club in Peru to a dance night in a New York warehouse to read stories of queer spaces of resistance and affinity.
5. Dancer from the Dance, Andrew Holleran, 1978.
Available to browse for free at Lavender Menace.
This novel follows the lives of a vibrant community of gay men in pre-AIDS New York as they navigate the dancefloors of the city, seeking out pleasure wherever it resides. Dancer from the Dance is both a historical account and a timeless story of queer life.
6. Dancing in the Dark, Janet Hobhouse. 1983.
Available to browse for free at Lavender Menace.
Gabriella and Morgan, dissatisfied with their marriage, are introduced to the 'glossy, genderless world' of gay discos by Claudio. The focus is on Gabriella's mixed feelings about gay nightclub culture, as she is both enthralled and confused by its intensity.
7. Rainbow City, Ellen Galford and Ken Wilson, 2006.
Available to browse for free at Lavender Menace.
The Remember When Project collected memories from Edinburgh's LGBT past, including the bar/club scene, spanning from the 50s-80s, reminiscing about places which have been long shut. The stories come from a variety of perspectives, and discuss both the isolation and community felt at the time.
8. Faggots, Larry Kramer, 1978.
Fred Lemish looks to find love in the late 70s, right before the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, in this controversial novel with an ambivalent relationship to the New York’s party scene.
9. Less than Zero, Bret Easton Ellis, 1985.
A cult classic that remains in print today, Bret Easton Ellis’ debut novel is set in Los Angeles in 1984. Bouncing between drug-fuelled private parties and the club scene, the narrative features problematic depictions of sex work and queer sexuality amid a morally ambiguous and occasionally morally reprehensible cast of characters.
You can find out more about Lavender Menace here, or visit their space at Edinburgh Palette, St Margaret’s House, Room G25c, 151 London Road, Edinburgh, EH7 6AE.
You can find out more about Small Town Boys here.