[2] It follows Robin and his friends—a group of "faggots and dykes", according to one reviewer,[2] most of whom grew up in the 1960s[4]—in the East Village of New York City.

[2] Robin is a contemplative gay man, who in the opening scenes thinks about the death of Chilean president Salvador Allende and the criminalization of homosexuality in Iran.

[2] The book was criticized by reviewer Rob Kaplan as lacking skill "with the technical aspects of narration and structure", though Kaplan also said the book held an important spot in society through its authentic and sensitive portrayal of gay life in New York.

[5] LGBT scholar Craig Allen Seymour II wrote that The Terminal Bar, just like Mitchell's earlier book, The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions, was a novel deeply connected to political issues (such as environmental degradation), though Mitchell left the fantasy genre to write a more realistic one.

[8] In 1998, contributors to the Encyclopedia of AIDS recognized the novel as perhaps the first fictionalized narrative that dealt with HIV/AIDS; Mitchell's New York-based novel preceded Babycakes by Armistead Maupin and A Day in San Francisco by Dorothy Bryant, which were among the first San Francisco-based pieces of fiction that dealt with HIV/AIDS (both published in 1983).