DYKE II, The Decadent '90s

In Dyke II, A Memoir, renowned event producer, music director, and community organizer Elaina Martin pries open the hidden doors first hinted at in book one of her Dyke series. Through the lens of her own life and relationships, as a proud butch Dyke, Martin draws readers along unique yet queerly familiar paths. From her experience of coming out amidst the xenophobic attitudes of Northern Ontario, through the decadence of 90s club life and into the rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods of Ottawa, Martin reflects on the ways queerness as a public experience was accessed and ultimately fought for prior to the internet's rewiring of social connectivity. The Decadent '90s, offers us a glimpse into Martin's brief stint as a corrections officer, her development as a stage performer, and ultimately her self-styling as an event producer, documenting the way queer relationships and community were formed in a time when the sense of building from the ground up was a social reality that inevitably produced a bumpy ride. Chronicling sex, music, drugs, friendship, joy, betrayal, and even bank robbery, Martin here shines her spotlight on a wildly significant period in Canadian queer history, and what we can learn from it.