Tinderbox

March 15, 2018
A history of the 1973 events that set a club in New Orleans--and the gay community--on fire.Gay liberation movements are often associated with the Stonewall riots or ACT UP's transgressive and vital actions during the AIDS crisis. It's not often that the Up Stairs Lounge, a gay bar in New Orleans, is placed within the narrative of gay uprisings and the reinforcement of community values. In this significant debut, journalist Fieseler has effectively made himself the authority on the subject. On June 24th, 1973, as men and women of all ages enjoyed a coveted evening in the safest place they knew, a gay man, angry after getting in a fight with patrons, poured lighter fluid on the steps leading to the Up Stairs Lounge. The events that ensued were horrific: "Lambent flames reached the back corner of the bar area, and the street lit up with the sound of seventeen people shrieking. Seeing faces burn in the windows, [a patron] yelled for them to jump. Fire ate them up." That night, 32 people lost their lives, but their deaths set fire to a different kind of flame. Fieseler discusses in great detail the conditions in which gay men were forced to live: in hiding, constantly afraid of discovery, putting a straight mask on in public. At the time, homosexuality was still illegal. More shocking, however, is what the author's rigorous research shows about how authorities, the media, and legislators mishandled the fire and aftermath. Through a series of systemic dismissals, linguistic omissions, and general complacency, the event has been largely erased from American history. Fieseler's work is an essential piece of historical restitution that takes us from 1973 to 2003, when homosexuality was finally decriminalized in Louisiana. Powerfully written and consistently engaging, the book will hopefully shed more light on the gay community's incredible and tragic journey to equality.A momentous work of sociological and civil rights history.

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April 16, 2018
Journalist Fieseler’s eye-opening first book examines the 1973 arson attack on the Up Stairs Lounge in New Orleans, which killed 32 people and which was, until the Pulse nightclub shooting of 2016, the worst attack on a gay club in American history. The book begins with a scene from the morning of the fire in which bartender Buddy Rasmussen and his lover, Adam Fonte, drive to the bar. The chapter on the fire itself is a haunting recreation of what it was like for those trapped inside, including Fonte, who died, and Rasmussen, who made it out and led a group to safety. Fieseler then focuses on the public’s largely ambivalent response to the attack, which received little media attention and a less-than-thorough police investigation that failed to identify the culprit. He describes how the gay liberation movement virtually shut down in New Orleans in the fire’s aftermath and adds that “the Up Stairs Lounge... exposed a majority of citizens as at best apathetic towards homosexuals while also revealing that civil rights movements of the era were tone-deaf.” Though Fieseler’s prose leans toward overreach—“Humidity, so thick with vapor that breathing air could feel like crying tears, would almost routinely reach 100 percent”—his attention to detail and intricate exploration of the material is spot-on. Fieseler shines a bright light on a dark and largely forgotten moment in the history of the gay rights movement.

May 1, 2018
It happened on June 24, 1973, on the fringe of New Orleans' French Quarter. Fire erupted at a gay bar, The Up Stairs Lounge, that would kill 32 people. The cause, it was later determined, was arson, the arsonist being a disgruntled bar patron who had been evicted from the premises following a fight. Largely forgotten for many years, this tragedy has now been brought to vivid life by Fieseler, who has done a remarkable job of research in telling the story of an event that would help give rise to the LGBTQ rights movement in New Orleans. It is routinely through death, the author writes, that we reckon with violations of our basic liberties. Yet insuring these liberties in New Orleans?and elsewhere?was an often fraught process at a time when a tragedy of this scope was largely ignored or trivialized by the mainstream population. Attention must be paid, and Fieseler has done a laudable job of insuring that it will be. His inspiring account is an important contribution to LGBTQ literature.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

Starred review from May 1, 2018

Until the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orland, FL, the fire at the Up Stairs Lounge in New Orleans in 1973 was the largest mass murder of gays in America. Here, journalist Fieseler investigates this tragedy, which tore apart a local gay community. He opens with poignant details of the lives of many of the fire's 32 victims, most of whom were leading double lives as they were not publicly out to their family and friends. On a hot summer evening, after a weekly "beer bust" event, an arsonist set fire to the steps leading up to the bar. Fiesler describes the blaze and chaos in the bar in excruciating and terrifying detail; many survivors and bystanders were traumatized by watching victims burn alive through the lounge windows. A gay prostitute named Roger Nunez, who was previously kicked out the bar for fighting was the most likely suspect, although he was never convicted. While the national gay community supported the victims of the fire, most New Orleanians either made cruel jokes about it (the largest in the city's history) or ignored it entirely. VERDICT A vivid, fast-paced, and essential LGBTQ and social history.--Kate Stewart, Arizona Historical Soc., Tuscon

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2018

In 1973, arson destroyed the Up Stairs Lounge in New Orleans and also destroyed the city's under-the-radar, blue-collar gay community. Thirty-one lives were lost, and with families ashamed to claim bodies and the Catholic Church refusing burial, the tragedy became an only recently acknowledged catalyst of the gay liberation movement. From a winner of Lynton and Pulitzer Traveling fellowships.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.