How Deep House Redefines Queer Love: Inside Jeremy Atherton Lin’s Unforgettable Story
In the first memoir, readers learn about the history of gay bars in London, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, all places where Mr. Lin and his partner lived together. But in Deep House, Mr. Lin unleashes the full breadth of his research skills, unraveling the history of same-sex unions and the marriage equality movement.
In Gay Bar, Mr. Lin refers to his partner as Famous, riffing on a nickname that friends bestowed: Famous Blue Raincoat. There is a rationale for the use of a nickname: both Mr. Lin and his partner share the same given name, and two Jeremys could potentially confuse the reader. In Deep House, however, the intimacy is further developed: Mr. Lin uses you, the second-person pronoun, to refer to his partner. Deep House documents the immigration struggles Mr. Lin and his partner encountered in their natural desire to remain together. In myriad ways, Deep House is also a 350-page love letter, dictated to that second-person Jeremy, and is one he qualifies by saying, “Stories don’t really have beginnings and endings, do they?” A story that, in its highs and lows, shares the depth of their love with the grateful reader.
