Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo, read by Emily Woo Zeller
- Publisher: Listening Library, January 19th 2020
- Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance, Young Adult
- Format: Audiobook
- Length: 12 hrs 26 mins (416 pages)
- My Rating: ★★★★★ (5/5)
Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.
AUDIOBOOK REVIEW IN EN & ZH-TW | 有聲書書評（中英對照）
EN
Content warning: racism, homophobia, manipulation, mention of miscarriage, alcohol (underage drinking)
She couldn’t find the right words for this dammed-up feeling inside, as if she were denying herself something absolutely vital, and she didn’t know why.
Last Night at the Telegraph Club is less about the romance between Lily and Kath but more about Lily trying to grasp her identity as a Chinese American lesbian in the 1950s.
In the prologue, four years before the main story (1950), thirteen-year-old Lily Hu (胡麗麗) and her childhood best friend Shirley Lum attend Miss Chinatown Contest with their families. I’d say this one chapter is the summary of the entire book in one way or another as we see Lily becoming aware of skin and bodies and the interactions between her and Shirley.
When Lily stumbles upon an ad for male impersonator Tommy Andrews’ performance at the Telegraph Club (1954), she is mesmerized, not quite understanding why. But she keeps the clip along with a few others in her copy of The Exploration of Space. All her dreams in one place, I think. As the new school year starts, there are only two girls left in Advanced Math—Lily herself and Kathleen Miller, who dreams of becoming a pilot. Their orbits never coincide until this very moment, and it makes all the difference.