Joel Kim Booster’s Fire Island Would Make Jane Austen Proud

Joel Kim Booster used to bring a different Jane Austen novel with him to Fire Island each year. It was eight years ago, the year that he brought Pride and Prejudice, that he said as a joke to his friend Bowen Yang, “What if I made a gay Pride and Prejudice, set on Fire Island?” He noticed the themes of Jane Austen novels – issues of longing and class and judgement – mirrored what life was like for a gay man on Fire Island. It didn’t matter that Austen’s stories dealt in heteronormative traditions. As the saying goes: the more… Read Full Article