A review by slowreadersclub
The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara
5.0
“Before there was Dorian and before there was Hector, there was 1980—the year that things began to change.”
The House of Impossible Beauties is set in the drag queen ball scene of New York from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. It centres on the legendary House of Xtravaganza, made famous in Jennie Livingston’s documentary Paris Is Burning, and follows the semi-fictionalised life of Angel Xtravaganza and her house children as they come together to form the ball scene’s first all-Latino house. This story blends significant LGBTQ history with poignant and vivacious characters to reflect the honest truth of gay and transgender life in the 1980s. The AIDS crisis, sex work, drugs, love and heartbreak are all aspects of this semi-fictionalised novel that blends real life locations and people with fictional stories that really give you an insight into what their lives may have been like.
Joseph Cassara’s prose is beautifully evocative and really brings to life all of the characters and the city they call home. Cassara’s dialogue is clever and so brutally honest and human, with Spanglish abundantly scattered throughout the story. I particularly enjoyed looking up the different Spanish words and I feel like a lot of them have stuck with me.
If you’ve seen Paris is Burning, you know that stories centred around gay and transgender lives in the 1980s rarely have a happy ending, and this novel was no exception. It truly broke my heart and I cried numerous times throughout, but it was also full of hope and inspiration. If there was one message I took from this book, it was to not be afraid to live your most authentic life.
The House of Impossible Beauties is set in the drag queen ball scene of New York from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. It centres on the legendary House of Xtravaganza, made famous in Jennie Livingston’s documentary Paris Is Burning, and follows the semi-fictionalised life of Angel Xtravaganza and her house children as they come together to form the ball scene’s first all-Latino house. This story blends significant LGBTQ history with poignant and vivacious characters to reflect the honest truth of gay and transgender life in the 1980s. The AIDS crisis, sex work, drugs, love and heartbreak are all aspects of this semi-fictionalised novel that blends real life locations and people with fictional stories that really give you an insight into what their lives may have been like.
Joseph Cassara’s prose is beautifully evocative and really brings to life all of the characters and the city they call home. Cassara’s dialogue is clever and so brutally honest and human, with Spanglish abundantly scattered throughout the story. I particularly enjoyed looking up the different Spanish words and I feel like a lot of them have stuck with me.
If you’ve seen Paris is Burning, you know that stories centred around gay and transgender lives in the 1980s rarely have a happy ending, and this novel was no exception. It truly broke my heart and I cried numerous times throughout, but it was also full of hope and inspiration. If there was one message I took from this book, it was to not be afraid to live your most authentic life.