Writer Elon Green talks with writer Hugh Ryan about his book, LAST CALL: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York.
Told in depth for the first time, LAST CALL is the gripping true crime story of The Last Call Killer, who preyed upon gay men in New York in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Yet because of the sexuality of his victims, the murders at the hands of this notorious serial killer have been almost entirely forgotten. This socially important piece of history is a nuanced testament to the vibrant gay community and the challenges they faced in the post AIDs milieu of early 90s New York City.
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"LAST CALL, Elon Green's stunner of a debut, scaffolds the gripping account of a serial killer stalking the bars and hangouts of early 1990s queer New York over a heartfelt elegy to the lost lives of the murdered men, of a community ravaged by AIDS, and of a city in perpetual ruin and revival. This is a book I will reread again and again and find new and astonishing insights every time."
-Sarah Weinman, award-winning author of THE REAL LOLITA and editor of UNSPEAKABLE ACTS: True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit & Obsession
More than impersonal crime reporting, Last Call brings to life the rich and tragic lives of The Last Call Killer’s victims and exposes the system that allowed them to be silenced. Called “astonishing,” “powerful,” and “meticulously
reported” - David Grann (New York Times bestselling author of KILLERS of the FLOWER MOON)
Elon Green has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and The Columbia Journalism Review, and appears in the anthology Unspeakable Acts: True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit & Obsession. He is an editor at Longform.
Hugh Ryan is a writer and curator. His first book, When Brooklyn Was Queer, won a 2020 New York City Book Award and was a New York Times Editors' Choice in 2019, and was a finalist for the Randy Shilts and Lambda Literary Awards. His next book, The Prison on Christopher Street, explores NYC's Women's House of Detention and the queer case for prison abolition. @Hugh_Ryan / hughryan.org
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