Obviously, it would be odd to consult a book called Queer City in search of information about other London pursuits – stamp-collecting, say, or ballroom dancing. ‘The pertinent characteristics of a large city such as London – the railway termini (even the trains themselves), the public baths, the arcades, the parks, the museums and art galleries, the gymnasia, the restaurants, the new theatres, the public lavatories and above all the restless streets – formed the perfect environment for same-sex pursuits,’ he writes. Through the magical Ackroyd X-ray binoculars, everywhere in London stands revealed as a steamy hub of gay activity. He subtitles his book ‘gay life in London from the Romans to the present day’. Now he has turned his all-seeing eye on what he calls Queer City. As well as his classic books London: The Biography and Thames: Sacred River, he has written masterly biographies of a wide range of Londoners, among them Dickens, Turner, Blake, Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock.
Ackroyd has an encyclopaedic knowledge of London, and a poet’s instinct for its strange, mesmerising drives and urges.
