--- description: Find out why 'Last Night at the Telegraph Club' made the list. title: 'Last Night at the Telegraph Club' Is on TIME’s List of the 50 Best Romance Novels image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4718f01d47f588e5/698a59449862f50faa895f7e/Last-Night-at-the-Telegraph-Club-Malinda-Lo.png?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Aug 01, 2024 # Last Night at the Telegraph Club by [Annabel Gutterman](/author/annabel-gutterman/) ## Annabel Gutterman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Senior Editor  Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu has spent most of her life in a bubble, surrounded by her Chinese American community in San Francisco. It’s 1954, and she wants to explore more of the city. Along the way, Lily also starts exploring inward, interrogating the connection she’s had with her white friend, Kathleen. One night, the duo secretly ventures out to the Telegraph Club, a nearby lesbian bar, and their romance begins to bloom. Lily embraces her sexuality when she’s out at the bar, but keeps her relationship with Kath quiet at home. Their romance would be unwelcome in Chinatown—and Red Scare paranoia is looming large, already causing stress for her family. A sweeping coming-of-age narrative imbued with deep research, Malinda Lo’s novel, which won a National Book Award in 2021, is a celebration of identity and first love. Like Patricia Highsmith’s [_The Price of Salt_,](https://time.com/6996686/the-price-of-salt/ "undefined") Lo’s entry into the canon of lesbian romance is significant for its relatively happy ending. —_Annabel Gutterman_ **Buy Now:** _Last Night at the Telegraph Club_ on [Bookshop](https://bookshop.org/a/4973/9780525555278 "undefined") | [Amazon](https://amzn.to/4bDfKRo "undefined") These are independent reviews of the products mentioned, but TIME receives a commission when purchases are made through affiliate links at no additional cost to the purchaser. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/best-romance-books/6996684/last-night-at-the-telegraph-club/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/best-romance-books/6996684/last-night-at-the-telegraph-club/"},"headline":"Last Night at the Telegraph Club","datePublished":"2024-08-01T12:08:51.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T00:33:56.049Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/best-romance-books/6996684/last-night-at-the-telegraph-club/","keywords":["Books","E-Commerce","list","Special Project"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4718f01d47f588e5/698a59449862f50faa895f7e/Last-Night-at-the-Telegraph-Club-Malinda-Lo.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Annabel Gutterman","jobTitle":"Senior Editor","url":"https://time.com/author/annabel-gutterman/"}],"creator":"Annabel Gutterman","articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4718f01d47f588e5/698a59449862f50faa895f7e/Last-Night-at-the-Telegraph-Club-Malinda-Lo.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/books/","name":"Books"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/best-romance-books/6996684/last-night-at-the-telegraph-club/","name":"Last Night at the Telegraph Club"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Romance Authors Share The Book That Got Them Into Romance","description":"Romance authors like Alyssa Cole and Tessa Bailey talk about the book that started it all for them.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/m8vBnzUj/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2024-07-30T10:00:00.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/m8vBnzUj.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/collections/best-romance-books/6996684/last-night-at-the-telegraph-club/","duration":"PT2M1S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/collections/best-romance-books/6996684/last-night-at-the-telegraph-club/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```