Sewers of Paris: Magic Horses & Middle School (Ep. 572 - Fantasy novels/Hugh Ryan)

When you compare what queer life was like at the end of the 80s to the start of the 2000s, the differences are so shocking it’s hard to believe that those years are only separated by a single decade. The author and historian Hugh Ryan has a new book about the people who shaped that decade, entitled My Bad: A Personal History of the Queer Nineties and Beyond. I spoke to Hugh back in 2020, when he released his previous book When Brooklyn was Queer. We spoke about his love for pulpy sci-fi novels that filled his middle school days with magic horses; and about how he became a mild mannered academic by day and rowdy party monster by night. And after a series of adventures, including one in which he moved into another person’s life, Hugh found a calling in queer history.