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.

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