Cinema Love

Cinema Love is a sweeping debut novel about gay men in rural China, the women who marry them, and the secret theatres where their husbands cruised for love.

For over thirty years, Old Second and Bao Mei have cobbled together a meagre existence in New York City’s Chinatown. But unlike other couples, these two share an unusual past. In rural Fuzhou, before they emigrated, they frequented the Workers’ Cinema, where gay men cruised for love.

While classic war films played, Old Second and his fellow countrymen found intimacy in the privacy of the Workers’ Cinema’s screening rooms. Elsewhere, in the box office, Bao Mei sold tickets to closeted men – guarding their secrets and finding her own happiness with the projectionist. But when secrets are unveiled, they set in motion a series of haunting events that propel Old Second and Bao Mei towards an uncertain future in America.

Spanning three timelines – contemporary New York, late ’80s Chinatown, and post-socialist China – Cinema Love is a voice-driven, tender epic that bridges the interior landscapes of the disenfranchised with the physical, and sometimes foreign, spaces they inhabit.