Moby Dyke : : an Obsessive Quest to Track Down the Last Remaining Lesbian Bars in America

Locations
Call Number: 306.76 Bu, Adult Book / Nonfiction / Social Science / Gender Studies / Burton, Krista
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	306.76 Bu	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	306.76 Bu	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Social Science / Gender Studies / Burton, Krista	4-week checkout	Due 05-11-2024
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Social Science / Gender Studies / Burton, Krista	4-week checkout	Due 05-15-2024
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Social Science / Gender Studies / Burton, Krista	4-week checkout	Due 05-17-2024

"Lesbian bars have always been treasured safe spaces for their customers, providing not only a good time but a shelter from societal alienation and outright persecution. In 1987, there were 206 of them in America. Today, only a couple dozen remain. How and why did this happen? What has been lost--or possibly gained--by such a decline? What transpires when marginalized communities become more accepted and mainstream? In Moby Dyke, Krista Burton attempts to answer these questions firsthand, venturing on an epic cross-country pilgrimage to the last few remaining dyke bars. Her pilgrimage includes taking in her first drag show since the onset of the pandemic at The Back Door in Bloomington, Indiana; competing in dildo races at Houston's Pearl Bar; and, despite her deep-seated hatred of karaoke, joining a group serenade at Nashville's Lipstick Lounge and enjoying the dreaded pastime for the first time in her life. While Burton sets out on the excursion to assess the current state of lesbian bars, she also winds up examining her own personal journey, from coming out to her Mormon parents to recently marrying her husband, a trans man whose presence on the trip underscores the important conversation about who precisely is welcome in certain queer spaces--and how they and their occupants continue to evolve. Moby Dyke is an insightful and hilarious travelogue that celebrates the kind of community that can only be found in windowless rooms soundtracked by Britney Spears-heavy playlists and illuminated by overhead holiday lights no matter the time of year."-- Provided by publisher.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Beautiful road memoir submitted by redwood on June 23, 2023, 12:26pm Between spring 2021 and summer 2022, Burton visited every remaining lesbian bar in the country. The US once had over 200 lesbian bars; during this year, it had just 21. On her journey, Burton asked why lesbian bars are closing and why they still matter.

Burton begins in “hot vaxx summer,” so there’s a definite theme of recovering from COVID closures. Bars were closing before that, though. The folks she talks to at the various bars have different theories on why—women have less disposable income, lesbians don’t have as much of a culture of going out, other spaces are more welcoming now. At almost every bar Burton visits, staff insist that everyone is welcome, which is both an ethos of inclusivity and a business tactic. The tension between inclusivity and centering queer non-men recurs.

The bars themselves shine, each one exuberant in its colorful decorations, events, and clientele. The drag shows! The neon signs! The beautiful patios that so many seem to have! Burton’s descriptions of bargoers’ fashion statements could be their own book. They’re mostly in large cities (I see you, The Back Door of Bloomington), but not always the ones you’d think—Oklahoma City has two, Los Angeles none, for example. Sometimes, on Burton’s travelogue interludes, my bad rural/South stereotypes detector would power up, but then Burton would do something, like tell a childhood story about hiding in a cornfield, that reminded me that hers was the gentle mockery of an insider.

Burton brings her whole self to this project, whether it’s including details about the financial pressures of the trip or delving into some of her personal backstory. She always includes these stories naturally, so that the whole thing feels like one project of lesbian cartography. This book was fun and hopeful, and in an epilogue, Burton notes that since she completed it, more lesbian bars have opened or planned to--the decline is no more!