Chicago, late 1980s. The bass is thundering, the lights are pulsing, and on the dance floor of Club LaRay, a generation of Black gay men have found something the outside world refuses to give them: sanctuary, visibility, and freedom.
In the shadow of the AIDS crisis, as friends disappear and the world turns its back, a chosen family comes together in the only place where they can be fully seen-where vulnerability is strength, where intimacy is resistance, and where joy itself becomes an act of survival.
Dancing Like Nobody's Watching: Contra Dance is an unflinching portrait of Black gay men navigating love, loss, and resilience during one of the most devastating periods in LGBTQ+ history. Through the pulsing rhythms of house music and the unbreakable bonds of chosen family, T. A. Riddle crafts a powerful meditation on memory, community, and what it means to claim space in a world determined to erase you.
This literary debut centers the interior lives of Black gay men with profound tenderness and complexity-their desires, their grief, their fierce determination to live authentically. Rooted in the rich tradition of James Baldwin, E. Lynn Harris, and contemporary voices like Brandon Taylor and Saeed Jones, Contra Dance is both a love letter to Black queer joy and an urgent reminder that some stories must be told, no matter the cost.
Perfect for readers of literary LGBTQ+ fiction, fans of E. Lynn Harris and James Baldwin, and anyone who believes that chosen family is sacred, that joy is resistance, and that Black queer lives deserve to be celebrated in all their fullness.
Contra Dance explores themes of:
• Black queer joy and resilience in the face of the AIDS crisis
• Chosen family and community building
• House music culture and 1980s/90s Chicago nightlife
• Intimacy, vulnerability, and authentic self-expression
• Cultural memory and the preservation of Black gay history
• Love as resistance and survival
A powerful, necessary addition to LGBTQ+ literary fiction and African American literature collections.
