Army of Lovers

'Will was pretty much the perfect role model.' — Beth Ditto, The Gossip

In the spring of 2010, Toronto lost one of its most important queer civic heroes when local artist, DJ, activist, impresario, promoter, party-thrower, café operator, community-builder and lover Will Munro died of brain cancer at the unfathomably young age of 35. Famed for his subversive, irreverent visual art, which co-opted rock 'n' roll imagery and raunchy gay iconography, and his legendary Vazaleen dance parties, which singlehandedly reinvented Toronto's queer nightlife culture, Will did more to revolutionize both his community and his city in a decade than most folks do in a lifetime.

Weaving together a collage of stories from and about the people who knew and loved him, Army of Lovers is both a biography of Will Munro and a document of a galvanizing period in the history of Toronto, a moment when the city's various subcultures — the queer community, the art scene, the independent music universe, the grassroots activist enclaves — came of age and collided with one another.

Selected by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Round Table (GLBTRT) of the American Library Association (ALA) for the 2014 Over the Rainbow Project book list