COMING SOON
A work of literary nonfiction about love, 1980’s L.A. queer history, and the long road from private longing to public recognition.
In 1980, Ariel Penn arrived in Los Angeles from Ohio with a typewriter, a dream of working in film, and no idea that her life would soon intersect with one of the most important civil rights movements in American history.
As she came of age in the charged queer world of 1980s Los Angeles, Ariel found chosen family, first love, heartbreak, gay student publications, lesbian bars, and the first terrifying rumors of AIDS.
Later, while working inside West Hollywood City Hall during the city’s formative years, she witnessed a small city imagine what the rest of the country still denied: that queer relationships deserved language, legal recognition, public dignity, and protection.
Among a circle of women staffers, the joking phrase “The Mrs. Club” became a private symbol of longing and irony. They borrowed a title none of them could legally claim, while helping shape a civic culture that insisted queer love mattered.
But while the public movement advanced through domestic partnerships, court battles, backlash, and eventual marriage equality, Ariel’s private life remained marked by longing, misfires, and the fear that lasting love might never arrive.
Then, in her fifties, she met Wennie online, and the history she had witnessed became intimate, tender, and real.
The Mrs. Club is about what happens when the country slowly learns to recognize your love, just as you are still learning how to receive it.