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Senior drag queen is star of Harlem Renaissance history
located in picturesque
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R ough A musements : T he T rue
S tory of A’L elia W alker ,
P atroness of the H arlem
R enaissance ’ s D own -L ow C ulture
by Ben Neihart; Bloomsbury USA,
2003; $ 2 1 .95 hardcover
A N
U lt ft A N
H I S T O R I C A L
R
ough Amusements is the third
book in the “Urban H istorical”
series, which, judging by this
entry, means a curious, sometimes
compelling mix of real characters, true
events and fabricated conversations set
in some specific time and (urban)
place— an echo of the “nonfiction
novel” pioneered by Truman Capote’s
In C old Blood but in a lighter mode.
Think long New Yorker essay with fic
tionalized moments.
The book’s subtitle, The True Story
o f A’Lelia Walker, Patroness o f the
Harlem Renaissance's Down-Low
Culture, is colorful enough but mis
leading. Walker, the daughter of leg
endary black hair care magnate and
activist Madame CJ Walker, does pop
in and out of the narrative. But she’s
only one of several figures in what is
essentially a portrait in tableaux of queer black
Harlem circa 1930. And she’s overshadowed by
the book’s most compelling figure by far: a "cas
trated fairy” known as Jennie June.
Rough Amusements takes place at a 1930
Harlem “Faggots Ball” hut uses that event as a
springboard for a lively, if not always gripping,
survey of the queer high life of the period. We
see A’Lelia happily spending her considerable
inheritance on endless parties, poet Countee
Cullen spumed by Langston Hughes, shipping
heiress and “Negrophile” Nancy Cunard
excoriating her racist mother to a distracted
Carl Van Vechten. Ma Rainey and Tallulah
Bankhead (or her drag queen hx)k-alike) make
brief appearances.
More enticing are the details of early
queer life, which fall like confetti through
the text. W ho knew that New York had
queer sex clubs in the 1800s? Or that a
“consumer guide to whores” was published in
1839? T he kx)k is loaded with this kind of
choice information that stretches backward a
century from the setting.
Author Ben Neihart’s triumph is a searing
Ulto Walk»«-,
_______ __________ m Renai ssance' »
Down-low Cuttur*
s l i f e
N EIHART 1 ;;
i.'
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.................................... ...... ..........—.... .................................. ......................................
portrait of 60-year-old drag queen Jennie June,
who conjures a heartbreaking history whenever
she appears (which is often). It’s hard to know
how much of this power to attribute to Neihart
and how much to June, whose actual words are
quoted extensively. “His voice was so dis
tinctive," Neihart admits in a postscript, “that
I’ve tried to make as few alterations to his actu
al memoirs as possible.”
June was a highly educated queen and
masochist who fearlessly lured straight toughs
into her arms. This sometimes triggered brutal
assaults, including numerous rapes. Other
times, despite her diminutive size, she scored
entire platoons of soldiers entranced by her
“baby girl” routine, which included torch songs
and slavish rituals with names like “Ceremony
of Adoration” and “Enslaving Ceremony.”
(Interested readers can kxik for her two h.x>ks,
Autobiography o f an Androgyne and its sequel,
Female Impersonators, published under her birth
name, Earl Lind.)
June and the striking inner and outer
worlds she inhabited make this quick read a
worthy one. jH