Last Night at the Telegraph Club
by Malinda Lo
Reviewed by Galen Strickland
Posted October 15, 2025
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My first non-SF book review since June is for one that has been on several banned book lists. This year's Banned Books Week was last week, but I started this one on the last day, Saturday, and finished last night. Some critics of books they don't like might say they are not really banned, just restricted some places. Most can still be purchased somewhere, even if taken off the shelves of a few libraries. I think it is appropriate for parents to be aware of their children's education, and have the right to restrict what is allowed for their family, but a book about a teenage girl in her last year of high school should be available to high school students, from a public library at least if not their school's.
Malinda Lo's Last Night at the Telegraph Club has won numerous awards, the most prestigious and well known being the National Book Award, in this case in the category of Young People's Literature. The main character, Lily Hu, is a student at Galileo High School in San Francisco in the mid-1950s. That is a real public school, currently known as Galileo Academy of Science and Technology. Before high school, Lily's life had been restricted to Chinatown. She is very smart, good at math and interested in science. Her goal is to go to Cal State like her Aunt Judy, and if things worked out well she might find a job where Judy and her husband both work, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. But this is not just a story of one teenager, it is also historical fiction dealing with Chinese immigrants, as well as American born Chinese, facing prejudice during the perilous time of the Cold War, and the anti-communist rantings of Joseph McCarthy. Most people that Lily knows, including her parents, had supported the Republic of China under Chiang Kai-shek, then the Chinese Civil War happened, and the communists won in 1949. The threat of deportaion hung over the heads of all Chinese-Americans, which prompted many to swear oaths of loyalty to the US. There are several flashback chapters featuring Lily's father, mother, and her aunt.
Within all of that turmoil Lily tries to concentrate on her studies, plus she reads both science fiction and science fact books and articles. One she references often is Arthur C. Clarke's Exploration of Space. Her aunt later gives her a copy of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. She wants to design rocket ships, and/or go into space herself. Her best friend Shirley thinks that is all nonsense, and like so many others, Shirley thinks it is a woman's place to get married, have children, take care of husband and home, so she is not even thinking of college. It is a wonder she and Lily are friends, and later Lily comes to the realization it is because that is the way Shirley wanted it, and she was adamant about Lily not having any other close friends. They had known each other their entire lives, but at Galileo Lily is among a wide variety of students, not just Chinese. Someone she had known since junior high, Kathleen Miller, slowly becomes a much closer friend. Kath was also good at math, but her main interest was in flying. She wanted to be a pilot, or if that wasn't possible at least an airplane mechanic. It is their senior year, and Lily and Kath are the only girls in their advanced math class. They start spending more time together out of school, even though Shirley still demands a lot of Lily's attention, and tries to warn Lily about getting too close to Kathleen.
There is something Lily knows she needs to keep secret from Shirley, and most everyone else, but her intuition tells her she can confide in Kath. Folded and tucked into her copy of Exploration of Space is an ad she had torn out of a newspaper. At night, alone in her room, she takes it out and looks at it fondly, longingly. The ad is for a performer at the Telegraph Club, the male impersonator Tommy Andrews. Tommy wears a tuxedo, her hair cut short like a man's. Lily would like to go to the Telegraph Club and see Tommy sing. Not only did Lily feel safe revealing that to Kath, she is surprised when Kath tells her she has already been to the club, taken there by an older friend, a friend who had been expelled from school a couple of years earlier for being discovered kissing another girl. Kath has a fake ID, and says she can get one for Lily too, so they plan a late night visit to the Telegraph Club. Considering the crowded nature of Lily's small house, with her parents and two younger brothers, it was hard to believe she was able to sneak out several times for trips to the club. Something else that puzzled me was how bold Lily was in doing such a thing, whereas her behavior otherwise was as a shy, dutiful daughter. She later realizes the risks they had taken, but doesn't regret it, even after a police raid where she got away but Kath did not. They had been underneath the stairwell leading up to the restrooms, kissing, when the police came in. Kath had to go back into the club for her coat, since it contained not only her fake ID, but her real one too.
Another very bold thing for Lily to do, after the raid was splashed all over the front page of the newspaper, and after Shirley had come by and told her someone from the neighborhood had seen her there, was tell her mother she had been at the club. Her mother keeps saying it was a mistake, "Lily couldn't have been there, she was upstairs asleep. Tell them it was a mistake!" Lily refuses. She will not deny who she is and what she has done. She calls Kath's house but no one answers. She runs out, straight to Kath's house, but no one comes to the door. Lily walks through the rain, not knowing where to go or what to do, but she eventually ends up at the apartment she had been to a few weeks before, the apartment of Tommy Andrews and her girlfriend Lana. Tommy is in jail, but Lana lets Lily stay the night. Lana is sure that since Kath is underage she would not have been arrested, just held until her parents picked her up. The next morning she goes back to Kath's house, where she is able to leave a note with Kath's younger sister. Back to Lana's, where her Aunt Judy finally finds her. It is decided Lily will go live with Judy and her uncle in Pasadena. I suppose her parents felt others would think she was being sent away as many other girls had before, to have a baby. Better that than have them know Lily was a lesbian. A year passes before Lily is able to see Kath again, but the visit is short since both need to get back to their schools, and Lily to her part-time job at JPL.
The reason Lily made her stand was due to the prurient nature of the news, that the club was where deviants seduced young girls into debauchery and drug use. Lily went to the Telegraph Club of her own volition, her own desire to explore the feelings she was having. There is a "companion" book, but I don't think it is a direct sequel, only tied to this one through a couple of characters, and set many years later. I would like to know Lily and Kath's future, beyond the short note on one of the timelines that Lily attends UCLA, and later gets a full-time job at JPL. Did Kath become a pilot? Do they have a future together? Even if not, I know the experience was an informative one for both women, something they will never forget. The reason books like this need to be available is, first, authors should be able to write what they know, write about themselves and their experiences. I realize many feel differently, thinking that if nobody talks about alternate sexualities then they can pretend it doesn't happen. That would be a disservice for those who are going through similar situations. They need to know they are not alone, that they can embrace the reality of their true self, and hopefully flourish and be accepted by others.
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