Then We Take Berlin: Stories from the Other Side of Berlin

John Stanley is a policy advisor at the Ontario Ministry of Colleges and
Universities.

Then We Take Berlin is based on Stan Persky’s travels through the
Eastern European cities of Berlin, Sofia, and Vilnius. His book has
excited more attention for its exploration of gay life in Eastern Europe
than for anything else. Ironically, although Poland and the Czech
Republic have by far the liveliest gay scene in the region, Persky did
not explore Warsaw’s gay life and did not visit Prague at all. Readers
in search of analysis of gay issues in the region would be better off
regularly scanning Toronto’s Xtra!

Persky himself assumes centre stage in this book. The reader is treated
to a detailed account not only of his family history but also of his
sexual contacts in Berlin’s boy bars. Unfortunately, this emphasis
comes at the obvious expense of any serious treatment of contemporary
Eastern European problems. There is too much of the journalist and too
little of the scholar in Persky’s latest book.