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Details About Books Killer in Drag
| Title | : | Killer in Drag |
| Author | : | Ed Wood |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 164 pages |
| Published | : | June 2nd 1999 by Four Walls Eight Windows (NY) (first published 1963) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. LGBT. Pulp. Gay. Gay Fiction. Mystery. Crime |
Ed Wood
Paperback | Pages: 164 pages Rating: 3.52 | 98 Users | 15 Reviews
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[2016 repost: I wrote this bizarre review in 2011, leading it off with two paragraphs that have nothing to do with the book. I was hell-bent, it seemed, to force this personal story into the review whether it fit or not. Oh well, that's OK. It's an Ed Wood book, and I think he would have understood...we all can go off the rails.]When I was in kindergarten lo those many years ago I exhibited atrocious behavior at the Halloween party. I didn't like the hobo costume my parents had selected for me, and in rebellion I cried through the whole choral program rather than sing along with the rest of the kids. By the time the Christmas Party rolled around I had cleaned up my act, was entirely the little gentleman, and was thereupon awarded a Firestone Christmas songs LP (that's a vinyl record album to you youngsters) as "best behaved boy at the Christmas Party."
In the demented way my brain works--full of forced connections as it is--I began to think that Ed Wood had--with the writing of this pulp sleaze crime novel, Killer in Drag in 1963--improved his act greatly since penning and directing two of the worst films ever made, Glen or Glenda in 1953, and Plan 9 From Outer Space in 1959. If Plan 9... was like me at the Halloween Party, then Killer in Drag was ...well, you get the drift of my horrible forced metaphor. (I won't even go into the psychological implications of being forced to wear a costume that was "not me.")
Killer in Drag will never make it to any edition of the Modern Library top 100 list, make no mistake. It's poorly written in spots, and yet at no point would I confuse the prose in this book with anything in the stilted and embarrassing Plan 9.... It might even be argued that Wood is the Hemingway of sleaze. The first sentence of chapter 3 says simply: "It was cold." Fuckin' A. Yes, the book is rife with cliched dialogue and situations pilfered from numerous other crime novels, but what makes the book endearing and fun is the sub-cultural color and cast of underclass characters that Wood creates in telling his fast-moving, twisty tale.
The story's protagonist, Glen/Glenda, is based upon Ed Wood himself, and was the subject of his 1953 film Glen or Glenda, which is a piece of cinematic history that must be seen to be believed. Wood was a heterosexual cross-dresser who wore women's underwear under his male business clothes (and supposedly wore panties and bra under his marine uniform when storming the beaches of Guadalcanal), and he channels his fetish rather marvelously into the predilections of his novel's hero/heroine. Glen/Glenda is a mob assassin who gets warm feelings in the groin whenever donning his/her soft tight angora sweaters. By day our hero is Glen, a man, and by night is Glenda, a hired killer. Glenda's night world is one of violence and sexual fetishism, in which she is the object of lust from every manner of man, from the beat cop to the sexually frustrated barkeep.
Glenda has built up a nice stockpile of cash via her trade and is contemplating evading the tentacles of her mob clients and disappearing with it to a new life. But on the night she embarks on a routine killing of a Jewish storekeeper who won't pay his protection money something goes terribly wrong. During the course of Glen/Glenda's subsequent journey to evade both the feds and the mob, she encounters a rapist farmer, brutal podunk cops on the take, a pedophile carny who likes pre-teen boys and toenail chewing (other peoples'), a crooked carnival owner, a he-she carny, and a hooker with a heart of gold. Being a very convincing cross-dresser and makeup expert, Glen/Glenn finds the ability to make the old gender switcheroo to be very handy in a pinch.
The book is most lovingly written when Wood gushes over Glenda's wardrobe, what it looks like and how it feels to the wearer. Along with being a fetishized fashion parade, the book is an interesting examination of a person with two distinct identities, a person who considers his male and female sides as "partners" in crime.
After much mayhem, one worries if Wood's ending will be able to tie things together, and it does, beautifully. The ending, like the book itself, is pretty kick-ass, in fact.
Is it an abuse of Goodreads' rating system to give five stars to what is, at best, really just a three-star book? Probably, but who the fuck cares? This book was as fun as can be; pulp sleaze at its best. It makes me most anxious to read Wood's 1967 followup, the allegedly sleazier, Death of a Transvestite.
------
(Kr@Ky 2011, with amendments in 2016)
List Books To Killer in Drag
| Original Title: | Black Lace Drag |
| ISBN: | 1568581203 (ISBN13: 9781568581200) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Glen Marker, Glenda Satin, Dalton Van Carter, Glen/Glenda |
Rating About Books Killer in Drag
Ratings: 3.52 From 98 Users | 15 ReviewsCommentary About Books Killer in Drag
Edward Davis Wood, Jr. (October 10, 1924 December 10, 1978) was an American screenwriter, director, producer, actor, author, and editor (often performing many of these functions simultaneously). In the 1950s, Wood made a run of independently produced, extremely low-budget horror, science fiction, and cowboy films, now celebrated for their technical errors, unsophisticated special effects,
Picture a Venn diagram of the intersection of Literature and Pulp Fiction. In that overlap you'll find Raymond Chandler, Jim Thompson, perhaps grandfather Poe. But take a closer look and you'll see '69 Chrysler 300 crashing straight through the crisp lines of the diagram and out into the great indeterminate blank beyond. For some reason you're in the backseat, wearing a fluffy, floor-length pink marabou negligee. Buckle up, because Ed Wood is in the driver's seat.I hope, for your sake, you've
[2016 repost: I wrote this bizarre review in 2011, leading it off with two paragraphs that have nothing to do with the book. I was hell-bent, it seemed, to force this personal story into the review whether it fit or not. Oh well, that's OK. It's an Ed Wood book, and I think he would have understood...we all can go off the rails.]When I was in kindergarten lo those many years ago I exhibited atrocious behavior at the Halloween party. I didn't like the hobo costume my parents had selected for me,
Fun piece of trash pulp.Caveat : cliffhanger ending.
Incredibly entertaining pulp fiction. Ed Wood can't write believable characters but he can write a story that functions with the same kind of weird wonder as his films.
Of course Ed Wood Jr. would write a perfect noir mystery full of dames and carnies and booze! He's an obvious fan of the times and genre. And being Ed Wood, his story would be an opportunity to put his trans heart on his sleeve again and just write his passion. He likes women's clothing. This ends on a cliffhanger. Thankfully there is a part two!
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