James St. James

The GAYEST novel in the GLBT YA genre I've ever read! Over-the-top, exuberant, wa-a-ay-out-there. But sad and optimistic, too. Oh, and the author has appeared on America's Next Top Model. Fabulous!!!!!!!

Billy is a gay drag queen attending a conservative prep school and living with his dad in Florida after being kicked out of his mother’s house in Connecticut (when she caught him wearing her Ungaro dress). Billy is beyond over the top for his classmates. His biology teacher looks the other show more way when he is teased and abused by classmates. The abuse culminates in a brutal beating in class that lands Billy in the hospital. Miraculously, popular jock Flip Kelly stops the beating and later regularly visits Billy in the hospital and at his house. When a spontaneous, intimate moment between Billy and Flip ends badly, Billy decides to reemerge as a new, stronger person: Superfreak. He campaigns for homecoming queen on the platform that everyone is a freak in his or her own way. Not the book for everyone but the just the right book for someone! show less

I've been fascinated by the 90's New York Club Kid scene: how can so many 20-somethings live with such reckless abandon? How do they even afford to live in NYC and party all the time and go to school? It's a world that I can't relate to, but reading James St. James' book definitely threw me in to the depths of it all. James' writing swirls and flourishes...I loved every minute. I later came to find out that he was still on drugs (speed or perhaps Special K) at the time of writing the book, show more but it worked for this story. I can't say that I walked away feeling sorry for Michael Alig, but it definitely led me to think more deeply about shared experiences and how living on the fringe can be both horrifying and fabulous. show less

... so, I just remembered this book existed, and I just realised I probably read it when I was way, way too young. Oops.

This reads like a fiction novel. I can almost guarantee that it will be unlike any other crime memoir you've ever read in your life.

I loved reading it at the time. I'm honestly not sure how I would feel about it now, but at the time, I was trying to figure out who I was and I was absolutely starved for any LGBTIQA fiction. So, reading this was sort of like a lifeline for show more me, and this book could've been the worst book ever written and it would still hold a special place in my heart because of the themes.

... but! James St. James is actually a really good and consistent writer. Do I condone anything he did in the book? Not at all. I do not condone drug use or any of his outlandish behaviour that he calls partying, but man this guy can write.

I still remember his monologue about taking Ketamine and reciting Hamlet after all these years of reading it.

So if you like William S. Burroughs, if you like Irvine Welsh, if you like Herbert Selby Jr, you might really enjoy this book.

This is Andy Warhol on speed, this is a hangover, a celebration of life and sexuality and taking ownership of a very, very chequered past. Despite this book's many, many flaws I can't help but still feel some sort of vague connection to it.

Take care when you read it, it's an absolute trip.

(tw: oh, god, all the things. Underaged sex, possibly nonconsensual sex, excessive drug use, gore? I can't remember all of them, I'm so sorry!) show less

I picked this book up because I'd heard the title mentioned, in passing, while watching the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard defamation trial. So, kind of random, when I realized what the book was about!

This is, as stated in the title, a true story about murder. But written by one of the biggest, most prominent Drag Queens of the early 90s, it reads like a delightful journal or blog entry! I'm honestly surprised I hadn't heard about this story (the murder of Angel Melendez) at the time, or even show more shortly thereafter. I was really into clubbing (at the gay bars), first while living in Lincoln, NE, then when I moved to Chicago, IL, and once again when back in Lincoln. My friends kept their ears to the ground--they knew things that were happening on the LGBTQ scene. But this, having happened in New York City, was just a little too far out of reach for us, I guess.

Nevertheless, the scenes described, the clothes and makeup worn, the parties and after-parties--they all ring of my delightful youth. (I must point out that I never tried 90% of the drugs mentioned in this book, and I'd never even HEARD of Special K... but I get the vibe, which, at my old age, is good enough for me!)

I'm pleased to see that James St. James still writes and hosts shows and is still very active in the LGBTQ community. He didn't fade into the background--he blossomed! show less