Photographing 14 Years of Queer Life on Fire Island
When acclaimed novelist Patrick Ryan encountered koitz Gay Fire Island: It's Good to Be Us, he recognized it as more than a photography book. He saw a deeply human portrait of a community, told through images that reveal not only celebration, but also intimacy, friendship, memory, and belonging.
Ryan is the author of the novel Buckeye, published by Penguin Random House, a New York Times bestseller and a Read with Jenna Book Club selection. He is also the author of the award-winning story collections The Dream Life of Astronauts and Send Me, and serves as editor-in-chief of the literary magazine One Story. His fiction is celebrated for its compassion, emotional depth, and unforgettable characters.
In the following essay, Patrick Ryan reflects on koitz's extraordinary fourteen-year photographic journey through Cherry Grove and Fire Island Pines. With the sensitivity of a novelist and the insight of a lifelong observer of human relationships, Ryan explores how koitz Gay Fire Island: It's Good to Be Us transcends documentary photography to become a lasting record of queer life, love, and community.
His words offer readers another way into the book—not simply as a collection of remarkable photographs, but as a visual narrative that preserves the spirit of Fire Island for generations to come.
koitz Gay Fire Island: It's Good to Be Us
Extract from the Foreword of the book (also published in LiteraryHub.com)
My first trip to Fire Island began like something out of a gothic novel. I was summoned at the last minute, on a gloomy Friday, to join friends out in Cherry Grove. I couldn’t leave until evening, which meant I was going to be part of the mass exodus filing out of Manhattan for the weekend. Already regretting having accepted the invitation, I rushed home after work, overstuffed my back pack with clothes and books, took the subway to Penn Station, pushed my way on to the Long Island Railroad, then dropped into a seat and closed my eyes.
It started raining. The wind picked up. Water slapped against the window where I was resting my head. I had to dash through the downpour to switch trains midway through, and dash again in Sayville, where I barely made the shuttle bus that would take me to the ferry landing. I don’t know if it was due to the weather or my mood or a shared dampening of spirits, but the dozen or so people I waited with on the landing—some with dogs, some dragging family-size ice chests—looked funereal. The sun had gone down. It was chilly for August. And it was still raining.
But then the ferry blew its horn and emerged out of the darkness.
Halfway across the Great South Bay the rain turned to mist. By the time we approached the outer barrier islands the mist had become a dense, moving fog, and the lights that appeared out of the darkness looked as hazy and ephemeral as dandelion blooms. - Patrick Ryan
Patrick Ryan is the author of novel Buckeye, published by Penguin Random House, a New York Times bestseller, as well as The Dream Life of Astronauts and Send Me. Ryan has also published three novels for young adults. His work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, Tin House, Granta, Crazyhorse, Tales of Two Cities, and elsewhere. The former associate editor of Granta, he is the editor of One Story and lives in New York City.