of previous decades, from the grimy secret bars of the 1950s and ’60s to the discos of the 1970s and 1980s, where Republican and Democratic gay personnel mingled in a secret society, to the parks that served as shadowy-and sometimes fatal-cruising grounds.
The book is also a delicious look back at the underground gay D.C. Spanning one administration to the next up until the start of the Clinton years, which ushered in a new era of openness, the book shows with devastating power just how terrified gay people were of being exposed in D.C.-and the often film noir–like shadowy dealings that occurred to either oust someone or keep them in the closet. Now, in Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington, political journalist James Kirchick has exhumed their stories with riveting, richly sourced detail, delving into long-buried papers, documents, and letters.
