Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day by Peter Ackroyd
233 pages
Published 2018
Read from May 29 to June 15
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
A topic that is equal parts important and neglected by mainstream history, queer history seems like a compelling fit for the wide-ranging research and anecdotal panache of Peter Ackroyd. Many passages in Queer City are packed with all the rich details you'd expect from Ackroyd, but all too often, he runs up against the same constraints that pushed Sapphistries in the direction of abandoning primary documentation altogether in favor of imagination: the sheer, sad lack of documentation of gay love and sex through most of history. After a certain point, Queer City becomes a sort of arrest register for all the men with the ill fortune to be swept up in official persecutions over the centuries. This in itself serves as a window into queer history, as bigotry and homophobic policy congealed into their familiar forms. But these sections of the book expose one of Ackroyd's stylistic weaknesses. He has a keen eye for detail and revealing quotation, but is lacking somewhat in synthesis and shaping a larger picture, often leaving that up to the reader. Nonetheless, Queer City is an essential read, at turns amusing and horrifying.
