This intricately plotted tale moves from a cruising spot for queer men in 1980s rural China to immigrant life in New York
Jiaming Tang’s debut novel opens in China in the 1980s, at the Workers’ Cinema in rural Fuzhou, a cruising spot for queer men. The cinema is described as a magical, almost utopian place, and the language Tang uses contributes to this dreamy, soft-focus vision. The men come to the cinema, he writes, “looking for love”; in the semi-darkness of old war movies projected onscreen for 10 hours a day, “men loved and loved and loved”.
Bao Mei, the woman who works as the cinema’s cleaner and ticket seller, also assumes the role of protector of the men’s safe space: she turns away policemen as well as the confused and sometimes grief-stricken women who come seeking their husbands.
