NEW ORLEANS (AP) – A new book details the 1973 deadly fire at a New Orleans gay bar that killed 32 patrons.
Robert Fieseler’s book is called “Tinderbox: The Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation.”
As a gay man, Fieseler says he thought he knew a lot about the gay liberation movement. But then in 2013, his journalism professor told him about the fire.
Writing the book was also a way to reconnect with a gay relative whose death had been an important turning point in Fieseler’s life.
About halfway into the four-year process of writing the book, a gunman killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Florida, lending his book greater emotional urgency. Fieseler says it also spurred new sources to come forward.
Image courtesy ALA.org.
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