Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo was published in 2021 and awarded the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature (2021).
BANNED in Brevard, Broward, Clay, Escambia, Flagler, Hillsborough, Manatee, Orange, Osceola, Palm Beach, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk, Santa Rosa, Seminole, Union and Volusia and County public schools
Last Night at the Telegraph Club is Malinda Lo’s coming-of-age novel following Lily Hu, a Chinese-American teenager navigating her lesbian identity in Chinatown, San Francisco, in 1954. In the Telegraph Club, a lesbian bar, Lily finds both sanctuary and self-realization during a fearful political climate.
The novel confronts the difficult realities of 1950s America – realities that remain strikingly relevant to contemporary students.
Living in the U.S. during the Red Scare, Lily and her Chinese-American family are at risk. Lily’s father faces the looming threat of deportation, despite his American citizenship. Lily herself faces the possibility of criminal prosecution for her burgeoning lesbian relationship, which violates morality laws. Lily’s experiences echo anti-Chinese sentiments following the COVID-19 pandemic, the escalation of ICE raids and new anti-LGBT+ legislation passed in states like Florida.
In 2025, these themes landed Last Night at the Telegraph Club among 57 titles banned in Hillsborough County Public Schools by administrative order for “patently pornographic” material. Another 600 titles were ordered for removal awaiting review. At the state Board of Education meeting that resulted in this mass ban, a board member suggested firing all Hillsborough County Public Schools media specialists, calling them “child abusers.”
In response to the banning of Last Night at the Telegraph Club, author Malinda Lo made a lengthy blog post. She writes: “There is a heavy element of shaming involved in these book bans. It’s clear that the book banners are declaring my book shameful – and by extension, they’re trying to shame me. The condemnation of these book banners does not shame me now.”