Last Night at the Telegraph Club

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2021

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue and Part 1

Grace and Part 2

Joseph and Part 3

Judy and Part 4

Grace and Part 5

Judy and Part 6, Epilogue, and Author’s Note

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

The Telegraph Club and Tommy Andrews

The Telegraph Club symbolizes hope to Lily. When she first comes across the ad in the newspaper that features male impersonator Tommy Andrews, she doesn’t quite know why she tears it out, but she’s fascinated by the appearance of a woman dressed in a suit. Eventually, it becomes clear that Tommy and the Telegraph Club as a whole illustrate for Lily that she doesn’t need to conform to the standards that society has set for her, especially given that she deals with significant pressure on so many sides of her life.

Hearing Tommy sing for the first time, Lily realizes the anticipation she built up over imagining Tommy’s act. It lives up to her expectations and helps her realize that Tommy is a real person, “a woman made of flesh and blood, and that frightened Lily most of all” (148). Hearing Tommy sing opens a world of possibility for Lily, a world in which she must find her place but where she can be open and accepted for her sexuality.

However, even in the Telegraph Club, Lily’s identity as a Chinese American woman sets her apart. When she looks around the first time she’s there, she balances the benefit with the drawback of this: “That meant there was no one from Chinatown to recognize her, but it also made her stand out all the more” (147). In fact, when Claire first encounters her, she asks if Lily speaks English, a casual, unwittingly racist question that throws Lily off and illustrates the intersectional nature of Lily’s identity: She’s both lesbian and Asian American, and, as a result, has an experience that differs from that of the white women who surround her in the club.

Strange Season

Lily comes across the romance novel Strange Season in the drugstore one day. The novel tells a love story between two women, Maxine and Patrice. When Lily first opens it, she finds a passionate scene between the two women, one that she later thinks about alone. Reading this book secretly in the drugstore—afraid of what people might think if she buys it—she feels “as if she had finally cracked the last part of a code she had been puzzling over for so long that she couldn’t remember when she had started deciphering it. She felt exhilarated” (42). She hasn’t exactly been able to identify what’s different about her, but the novel confirms for Lily that she’s interested in women romantically. For the rest of the novel, she wrestles with the ramifications of this realization for her life.

Later, Lily takes Kath to the drugstore see the book, but it’s gone when they arrive. However, as she describes the plot, romantic tension grows between the two of them as she asks Kath, referring to a romantic relationship between women, “Have you ever heard of such a thing?” (93). Kath responds “Yes,” confirming for Lily once again that she has found an ally in Kath on her journey to learn more about what it means to not be straight. Eventually, they become romantically involved.

The book Strange Season reappears when Lily is at Lana and Tommy’s apartment. She finishes it and is sad to discover that the two women don’t end up together. One lands in an asylum. Publishers often released novels about women who were together romantically but due to obscenity laws weren’t allowed to stay in a relationship; many ended in tragedy. When Lily finishes Strange Season, she’s still unsure what’s happened to Kath and what she’s going to do, and the novel’s end seems to point to nothing good. However, even though Lily’s parents think in the end that she stayed away from Kath, they remain in love.

Science and Math

Lily wishes for nothing more than to work at the Jet Propulsion Lab, having wanted to work on rockets and space her whole life. Her Aunt Judy has proved that women can carve out a space in the profession for themselves despite stereotypes about women and math, but Lily’s parents see her goal as unrealistic. Likewise, Shirley disparages Lily’s childhood dream of wanting to go to the moon, saying that she wouldn’t want to go. Kath, however, says that she would, and she and Lily bond over their love of space, science, and flying.

This shared passion becomes an outlet for them, and Lily and Kath often discuss their dreams of working on rockets and becoming a pilot, respectively. When they go without talking for a while after Shirley and Lily make up, Lily feels desperate to show Kath that she still wants to be around her. She thinks, “Rockets to the moon didn’t seem so far-fetched when Kath listened to her. She made previously unimaginable things seem possible” (221). Their connection over science and their interest in women helps Lily become more confident because she has someone who supports her identity despite the marginalization she faces as a lesbian woman of color. Ultimately, both she and Kath realize their dreams.