My 4/5 star review of Len & Cub by Dusty Green and Meredith Batt, published by Goose Lane Editions.

Len & Cub is the story of two men who grew up in rural New Brunswick together who engaged in a romantic relationship in a time where homosexuality was not allowed. Documented by the photographs that Len took, this story is a nice mix of text and photos to tell a story that otherwise may have been missed if it hadn’t been for these photos.

This book was interesting to me because a lot of the photos speak for themselves. I could look at the photos and almost feel the relationship that these two men had, and learning bits about their lives helped to further the notation that I had developed. The fact that these photographs were taken, and then further passed along for another almost 100 years is crazy to me. These photographs represent a time that is not well documented in terms of queer history, especially in rural New Brunswick, so having read this book and viewed the pictures with them was a pleasure.

I sometimes found it hard reading this book because there is some speculation as to the lives Len and Cub led and there were not always hard details. But I also have to remember that Len and Cub were not famous people of their time, and that there really is not a whole lot to go off of for details. So speculation is almost needed to fill in the blanks, which made a lot of sense to me when I thought about this.

I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in queer history, but also specifically local people as it a story close to home. This book reads very well but is also very informative and has text citations, so if you are someone who likes to explore further and/or learn as you go this is a great read for that.

Len & Cub is a non-fiction historical book about two men named Leonard Olive Kieth and Joseph Austin Coates, (or known by their nicknames, Len and Cub), who were a couple living in New Brunswick in the early 1900’s during a time when homosexuality was illegal in Canada. It chronicles their lives before, during, and after their relationship, using many photos, most of which were taken by Len himself.


Like I said before, non-fiction books like this aren’t always my cup of tea, but it surprised me a bit and it was interesting to learn about LGBTQ life back then. I can very clearly tell how much heart and soul was poured into the making of this book. The authors worked hard to have even the smallest detail be as accurate as possible. They worked incredibly hard on getting the facts and the photos, and there is PLENTY in this book. I rate this a 4 / 5 stars because it doesn’t spare a detail (As far as I know) but I think I’m more of a fiction type girl 😉. So if you like true history books, or want to learn more about Queer history this will not fail you!