Starting with the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and continuing up through Bill Clinton’s presidency, Kirchick has spent a decade uncovering long-hidden stories that have been lost from history. My being gay informs my ability to say that.” It’s important that we have these stories. “Even liberal straight historians would feel uncomfortable about writing this kind of a book. “It needed a gay person to do this,” he said. As he began working on the massive project, Kirchick started to believe that, as a gay man, he was uniquely equipped to write Secret City. In fact, census data shows that DC has the highest proportion of gay people anywhere in the US. Kirchick first became intrigued by the idea of a gay history of American power politics in 2007, when he moved to DC and realized that it was suffused with a vivid gay cultural life and history. It’s not overturning this established narrative, it’s adding to it and complicating it.” “I wanted to bring them together to show they’re connected stories, that they interact and complement each other.
“I want to intertwine these two threads – the mainstream thread of history that we all read about, and this gay history that’s been sidelined and sequestered,” he said.