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Book Review - Drag King Dreams
July 28, 2006
by Jamie Tyroler
Drag King Dreams by Leslie Feinberg (Carroll & Graf Publishing, $15.95 paperback, 302 pages)
Drag King Dreams is the second novel by Leslie Feinberg. (See story on page 11) Like hir* first novel, Stone Butch Blues,” this is the story of a person dealing with the gender identity issues of someone who is neither really female nor male. Also like Stone Butch Blues, there is more to the story than gender identity – there’s also a political message about how people need to be involved with larger issues.
The story takes place in and around New York City after 9/11. Max Rabinowitz, the main character, discovers hirself very isolated, except for some friendships with coworkers at Club Chaos, a Greenwich Village drag bar, where Max works as a bouncer, and one friend from Max’s earlier life. Most of the coworkers appear to be transgender or queer, but it’s not easily recognized or spelled out. In my opinion, this helps minimize the importance of gender identity while allowing each character some flexibility in defining and redefining personal gender.
Several events occur to help Max become more involved with the community at large, not just a transgender or queer community. Since much of the story happens in 2002–2003, there are real-life events that make the fictional characters seem more true to life, such as their protests against the war in Iraq.
Some of the gender queer or transgender characters in Drag King Dreams do face the kinds of issues familiar to the transgender community: violence, respect issues based on the use of pronouns, identification, being targeted for arrest, etc. At the end of the novel, Max is in jail, summoned by a police officer as “Maxine Rabinowitz,” which potentially could put Max in physical jeopardy if housed with male prisoners.
I highly recommend Drag King Dreams and hope that people who read it relate not only to the characters face personally but also to the political lessons it offers. Many people might not realize that there is a connection between our “War on Terror” and the political disfranchisement of gender-variant people. There is – especially given the Real ID and Voter ID laws that have recently passed requiring a valid ID in order to vote and the difficulty gender-variant people may have in getting a valid ID.
*Leslie’s preferred pronouns are ze (instead of he or she), hir (instead of him or her), and hirself (instead of himself or herself).
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