How You Get Famous
Ten Years of Drag Madness in Brooklyn
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A “funny, poignant, dishy, and even enlightening” adventure through a tight-knit world of drag performers making art, mayhem, and dreaming of making it big, this book is “the story of America now” (Alexander Chee, The New York Times).
In How You Get Famous, journalist Nicole Pasulka raucously documents the rebirth of the New York drag scene, following a group of iconoclastic performers with undeniable charisma, talent, and a hell of a lot to prove. In the past decade, drag has become a place where edgy, competitive showoffs can find security in a callous and over priced city, a shot at real money, and a level of recognition queer people rarely achieve. But can drag keep its edge as it travels from the backroom to the main stage?
A “joyful and scrappy” (Esquire) portrait of the 21st-century search for celebrity and community, How You Get Famous is “dripping in plush detail and drama” (Mother Jones) and “stitched together with great respect and love” (The Guardian). It’s the story of an aimless coat check worker who sweet-talked his way into hosting a drag show at a Brooklyn dive bar, a pair of teenagers sneaking into clubs and pocketing tips to help support their families, and eclectic performers who have managed to land a spot on TV and millions of followers…all colliding in an unprecedented account of a subculture on the brink of becoming a cultural phenomenon.
“If you like to have a good time, you want to read this book!”—BuzzFeed
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Pasulka debuts with an entertaining deep dive into the last decade of the Brooklyn drag scene. Though there's just enough contextualization of American drag itself—with its roots in "female impersonation" and Black ballroom culture—Pasulka's keen eye is trained on Brooklyn and the queens from the borough who have risen over the past 10 years to unexpectedly become the "apotheosis of cool." Much of the narrative focuses on a few subjects, including Aja, a multiple-time contestant on RuPaul's Drag Race who used drag to understand her nonbinary gender and has since pursued a career in rap; Merrie Cherry, arguably the founder of the Brooklyn drag community, who overcame a stroke to continue her drag career; and Sasha Velour, whose arthouse-inspired looks pushed the limits of mainstream drag. Pasulka skillfully weaves each performer's story into a tapestry of messiness, drama, and the complexities of modern queer subcultures, but as the author herself cautions, this isn't a comprehensive or definitive history. Occasionally, to its detriment, the book positions its subjects' word as final; when addressing the criticism around white drag queen Thorgy Thor's dreadlocks, for instance, she offers the queen's own explanation (it's easier for wig purposes) without further unpacking the issue. Still, LGBTQ history buffs and fans of Drag Race will be hard-pressed to find a more in-depth look at the drag explosion of the 2010s.
