Author Clayton Delery will read from and sign copies of his new book, Out for Queer Blood: The Murder of Fernando Rios and the Failure of New Orleans Justice, on Thursday, November 16, at Café La tte in Exile at 7:00pm.
In 1958, Fernando Rios was at Café Lafitte when he was picked up by a Tulane undergraduate named John Farrell. Moments after the two left, Rios was brutally beaten and subsequently died. The murder resulted in a sensational trial in which the defendants successfully used the infamous “gay panic” defense.
Out For Queer Blood is a nonction account of not only the murder of Rios but also of the extremely homophobic atmosphere of 1950s New Orleans. At the time of the murder, Mayor Chep Morrison and the city council were engaged in an effort to eliminate homosexuality from the city.
Clayton Delery is also the author of The Up Stairs Lounge Arson, which was named Book of the Year by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities in 2015. Delery serves on the Board of Directors of the LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana and is currently working on a book about gay conversion / reparative therapy. He lives in New Orleans.
