"Café Lafitte in Exile: Queer New Orleans and the Story of Americas Oldest Gay Bar tells the story of queer New Orleans history through the lens of Americas longest-running, continually operating gay bar, Café Lafitte. This legendary bar was first located at 914 Bourbon Street, now Lafittes Blacksmith Shop, then at the corner of Bourbon and Dumaine Streets. In both locations, Café Lafitte has held a central place in New Orleanss queer scene, with a lot of mythology growing up around its history-some of it true, some more contested. In Exile endeavors to set the record straight. Along the way, it shares an overview of the development of queer New Orleans and meditates on the challenges of performing queer memory work. The story begins long before the founding of gay bars, with an examination of notable gay writers, musicians, and activists in nineteenth-century New Orleans. Queer men played a crucial role in the preservation of the French Quarter in the early twentieth century, and the resulting French Quarter Renaissance deeply informed the establishment of Café Lafitte, as well as its patronage and sensibilities. In 1953, Café Lafitte relocated to its present location, at a time when the city was aggressively cracking down on gay bars, and was sold to its present owner, Tom Wood, in the midst of the burgeoning gay liberation movement in the 1970s.

It remained a crucial locus of queer New Orleans culture through the HIV/AIDS crisis and on to the present era of more widespread acceptance of queer people and queer culture"-- Provided by publisher.