The Queen of Gay Street

The Queen of Gay Street is an absolute delight for anyone who’s ever dreamed of running away to the big city to reinvent themselves. Esther Mollica’s writing style is tantalizingly descriptive, brilliantly bold, and unapologetically Lesbian. After losing her job during the 2008 recession, falling out of love with her hometown of San Francisco, and getting her heart ripped out by a duplicitous lover leading a double life in Chicago, the author decided that New York City promised all the tools she needed to start over. And the city that never sleeps certainly delivered. After a few slippery missteps in the sketchy New York job market, Esther lands a position as a blogger for the city’s Lesbian dating scene. Wild nights written with such heartfelt honesty and raw vulnerability, take up chapter after chapter; some feature one-night stands, while others revolve around the volatile, on-again-off-again relationship between the author and her erstwhile Editor. Tender musings on the effects trauma can have on romantic relationships and the distortions of self-worth caused by abuse are interspersed throughout, giving the reader a genuine and passionate perspective on what it’s like living as an out Queer woman in a world that isn’t always kind to us and certainly isn’t built for us. I literally read this book in a day. Not because it’s short, but because I genuinely couldn’t put it down. It seems like most new Queer media and representation tends to be geared towards a younger crowd, but as a Queer Femme Millennial who graduated college during the 2008 Recession and grew up on both Sex and the City and The L Word, I could not get enough of Esther’s story. Apart from also being Queer, there’s not a whole lot I have in common with the author, but the easy way she muses on both major and everyday events, the constantly shifting nuances of her feelings, and the way she experiences both the city and the people that waltz in and out of her life is some of the most relatable and engaging storytelling I’ve read in a really long time. If you’re looking for a spicy romp through the New York Lesbian scene with a sprinkling of introspective musing and a happy ending (which we all know is still a bit of a rarity for the LGBTQ+ community), then this is the book for you. Mollica certainly proves that she’s the Queen of Gay Street. All hail the Queen!