Host City

by David Owen Kelly

Darlinghurst, these are the days of strange rumours. Talk you can catch the gay plague from kissing, or from a mosquito bite. Talk of the government building a wall around 'Darlo' to keep the plague contained. Talk of old quarantine stations around Australia being reopened, of the army being used to round up all the poofters. Bashings increase tenfold and you're dead meat if you don't have someone to watch your back. Kit, Ty, and Johnnie, three young gay men, just want to live the life Sydney promised when they arrived. Host City, David Owen Kelly's third book, is a stunningly innovative fusion of memoir and alternative history that spins an affective tale of persecution, jeopardy, and survival from the fear and paranoia that marched lockstep with HIV in the 1980s.

Genres: Fiction, Australia

242 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2024

Reviews

[Dillwynia Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an allegory of the gay ghetto of Sydney during the start of the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 90s.
For much of the allegory to work one needs to be very familiar with what was happening in Sydney, the government and society's response to the disease at the time, and some of the more colourful characters of the day. Thus the readership is quite limited. Add to this the clunky nature of when the allegory kicks in, akin to a learner driver changing gears in a manual car, resulting in being someone who really wanted to enjoy it (particularly understanding the references), but feeling unsatisfied.

[Jaclyn]

I’m grateful to the VPLA judges for putting this on my radar and to myself for being the kind of reader who has to read an entire shortlist. I was so very ‘in’ this memoir/novel until it leaned into an alternative history narrative where it lost me. I appreciated the attempt but felt the threads of the story unravelled in my hands. It lost me or I lost it. As a queer history of Sydney in the 80s it was glorious and heartbreaking. That goddamn grim reaper!

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have struggled with how to review this. I have so many thoughts, and yet so many of many thoughts would spoil the experience of reading. So I settled on bullet points:
1. I didn't want to stop reading this book. Didn't want to put it down, didn't want it to end.
2. It captures so perfectly queer culture of the late 80s and 90s. The days when Oxford Street wasn't posh, and the Sleaze Ball was wild;
3. It also captures the sense of constant violence, abuse and attempted degradation. The way that AIDS education associated queerness with death. The casual acceptable homophobia of "only gays and drug users were affected"
4. Kelly pulls off a real trick here in telling a very contemporary story at the same time, about how quickly things can turn. This is a book to read for our moment.
5. It has been a recent preoccupation of mine thinking about how Australia's community-informed approach the HIV education changed so much. This is a very different angle to tackle it from, but worth it.
6. The book will reward you for close attention - it isn't necessary to enjoy it, but it will be satisfying :)

[Mick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Relatable, compelling memoir of a gay Brisbane boy with nowhere to go escaping to Sydney.

The speculative-fiction parts towards the end might be considered hyperbolic but aren’t anything that didn’t happen during WWII, and are arguably just the governments deliberate negligence during AIDS made manifest into active homicide.

[Lynda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed the step back in time to places and traditions that were still going strong over a decade later for us to experience. A cautionary tale that warns of the way human nature deals with fear of the unknown and different. I read this in one sitting, very poignant and well written.

[James Whitmore · Rating 5 out of 5]

The idea of history — contingent, experienced very differently depending on one's position in society — lies deep in the foundations of Host City. Read more on my blog.

[Tracy Hollen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25 stars

[Barbara Whitehead · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many memories of being a young, hetro woman in the Cross and Oxford Street. Patches, amyl and beautiful young men. Then came the fear. The fictional part of the story is believable.

[Pru · Rating 3 out of 5]

Host city starts as a biography, focusing on David Owen Kelly's life as a young adult gay man, who had moved to Darlinghurst on the cusp of HIV/AIDs. The book effortlessly transitions into a dystopian tale of what could have happened had the government placed a wall around Darlinghurst to contain that gay disease.

While I found the biographical element fabulous, fascinating, and flamboyant, the dystopian portion disappointed me. It was clever but I would've preferred to continue to learn more about David's life.