Teenager Lily Hu is fully immersed in the life and culture of San Francisco’s Chinatown, home to Chinese immigrant families like hers. But as she comes of age in the 1950s, her passion for rockets and space exploration is matched by her curiosity about the Telegraph Club, located in a neighboring part of the city her parents have asked her to avoid.
Lily and her new friend, Kathleen, begin to sneak out at night to the club, which hosts performances by Tommy Andrews, a woman who dresses and performs in a traditionally masculine style. Kath and Lily’s interest in each other continues to grow despite the very real danger faced by two girls falling in love in 1954.
At the same time, McCarthy-era fears about Communism, coupled with ongoing anti-Asian hate, shake the stability of the Chinese community and threaten to engulf Lily’s own father.
For the 21st year of the Vermont Reads program, we invite Vermont communities to plan projects centered around Last Night at The Telegraph Club and its themes of self-acceptance, familial and cultural ties, US/China relations, LGBTQ+ and Feminist history, McCarthyism and xenophobia, music of the 1940s and 1950s, and the Asian American experience, among others.
The start date for Vermont Reads 2023: Last night at the Telegraph Club is July 1, 2023. Applications for projects will be accepted through June 30, 2024.
We are offering each Vermont Reads host organization one free discussion of Last Night at the Telegraph Club, led by one of our trained facilitators. Visit our Leading a Book Discussion page for more details.
We are also offering each Vermont Reads host organization up to three free Speakers Bureau talks related to the themes in Last Night at the Telegraph Club. Visit our Suggested Activities page for more details.
Malinda Lo turns her masterful talent toward an under-covered period of San Francisco history. Last Night at the Telegraph Club is by turns gut-wrenching, utterly compelling, and deeply tender. I loved Lily fiercely, and you will too.
Rebecca Kim Wells
Author of "Shatter the Sky"
Last Night at the Telegraph Club has won many prestigious awards, including the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, The Michael L. Printz Award from the American Library Association, the Stonewall Medal for LGBTQIA+ books, and the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature.
Author Malinda Lo skillfully weaves actual events—such as Madame Chiang Kai-shek’s visit to San Francisco in 1943—into this narrative about a teenaged girl finding her true self. Throughout the novel, Lo also relates the stories of Lily’s extended family, including her father’s move from China to San Francisco as a college student and her aunt’s job in the budding aerospace industry.
To support Vermont Reads 2023 we’ll host a series of public events, featuring in-person and online discussions and presentations around the book’s themes, including a planned visit to Vermont by the author at some point during the program year.
October 10
What happened in Vermont when the anti-Communist fear known as the “Red Scare” swept the country? Quite a bit, as it turns out. Rick Winston, author of the book “Red Scare in the Green Mountains: Vermont in the McCarthy Era,” explores some forgotten history as we see how a small, rural “rock-ribbed Republican” state with a historically libertarian streak handled the hysteria of the time.
October 12
What happened in Vermont when the anti-Communist fear known as the “Red Scare” swept the country? Quite a bit, as it turns out. Rick Winston, author of the book “Red Scare in the Green Mountains: Vermont in the McCarthy Era,” explores some forgotten history as we see how a small, rural “rock-ribbed Republican” state with a historically libertarian streak handled the hysteria of the time.
October 18
Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo will be the topic of discussion Lesley Wright, a Vermont Humanities book discussion leader, will facilitate a discussion of the 2023-24 statewide read book selection. Multiple copies of the book are available at Roger Clark Memorial Library and are available to anyone who would like to read it.
Vermont Reads 2023 is presented with support from The Trout Lily Foundation and The Jack & Dorothy Byrne Foundation.
Poet Sarah Audsley joined us at the Taconic Mountains Ramble State Park for Words in the Woods.
Humanities Camps are filled with reading and writing projects, field trips, and outdoor activities.
We won a 2020 Schwartz Prize for best public humanities programming in the U.S. for Vermont Reads 2019: “March: Book One.”
We supported Historic New England’s “More than a Market” project that explored the experiences of new Americans through food markets.
Our free public events help bring the power of the humanities to communities across Vermont.
