Also, I think if you look at anyone’s life closely enough you can see something interesting. Part of what was so exciting to me was that these guys were basically a blank slate and it would take a tremendous amount of work to reconstruct their lives, and doing so would be incredibly satisfying. I’ve interviewed Mavis Staples four or five times, and if I ever want to find out what she was doing in June of 1962, I can figure it out. You write that these killings were largely forgotten and that you became “obsessed with the lives of the victims.” What are some of the factors that contributed to this obsession?Įlon Green: When you write about someone famous, it’s very easy. I spoke with the author at length about how he pieced this story together and why he felt it was so necessary to tell.Īndru Okun: Last Call examines a string of murders of queer men in New York City during the 1990s. While his book is difficult, it provides a careful record of an era that deserves to be documented. “From the beginning, I viewed Last Call as a work of history with crimes and investigations holding it together,” Green tells me over a recent phone call. When the bodies of gay men started showing up in trash cans, yet another fear was introduced into the everyday lives of gay people. Police were of no use in responding to these assaults, and the AIDS crisis was still largely misunderstood. Last Call chronicles these bars, which were essential to the formation of the gay community during a time of rampant anti-queer violence. “The Last Call Killer” was known for targeting queer men in some of the places where they felt most safe: the gay piano bars of Manhattan. They were also uniquely connected by a different tragedy, each murdered by the same serial killer. Green’s debut recounts the lives of four men who were part of the queer community during this time.
As Elon Green writes in Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York ( Celadon Books), “Death was a constant hum.” By ’97, more than 60,000 people in the city died of AIDS. During the 1990s, the AIDS epidemic inflicted a harsh toll on New York.
0 kommentar(er)
