Wildflower
The
Dramatic Life of Barbette --
Round
Rock's First and Greatest Drag Queen
By
Kyle Taylor
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BLURB:
“More
fun than a sex party!”
— Barbette
Long
before Ru Paul eyed his first pair of
six inch stilettos or Boy George donned his colorful caftan, a handsome young
man from the small town of Round Rock, Texas barnstormed the stages of Europe’s
most lavish theaters and night clubs as Barbette, a beautiful aerialist drag
queen who became a scandalous sensation throughout the Roaring Twenties.
Performing
his erotic, high wire and trapeze routine in lavish, feminine regalia, Barbette
shocked audiences by revealing the true nature of his gender at the very end of
his act.
From
a child who picked cotton and walked his mother’s clothes line to headlining at
the Moulin Rouge in spectacular drag,
Wildflower reveals long-forgotten secrets of this enigmatic performer:
his arrest in London on morals charges, his bout with polio, his infamous
collaborations with some of Hollywood’s greatest stars— Orson Welles, Vincente
Minnelli, and Judy Garland, Jack Lemmon, and Tony Curtis as well as his hidden
affair with French surrealist Jean
Cocteau.
Wildflower
captivates with every page, dramatically revealing the startling and at times
heart-breaking story of Round Rock’s first and greatest drag queen.
EXCERPT:
“You need to take a French lover. It is
how you will learn quickly,” Princess Violette said instructively. Her
voluminous frame rested on a simple wooden chair, similar to the one Vander sat
at in front of his vanity—her girth permitting her to only sit like a man, with
her legs open, the heels of her shoes flatly on the floor.
“Yes, preferably one with a mustache!”
Radiguet joked.
Vander’s face colored.
“Ah, look he blushed!” Radiguet laughed
robustly.
Jean Cocteau grew more serious as he
looked intently at Vander.
“I must confess, I have seen your show
many times in the past week. You are an angel, a flower, a bird.”
“Oh dear!” Radiguet rolled his eyes.
“Please!” Cocteau turned to Radiguet his
eyes darting a flash of anger. Radiguet slumped into the armchair, knowing when
Jean Cocteau had a point he wanted to make he would not tolerate distractions.
“I have written a review. It shall be
published tomorrow, but I wanted to come back here tonight, for what I have
written in it, I can only say to you personally—tonight’s performance was again
confirmation of my earlier impressions.”
Vander nodded toward Cocteau
apprehensively as the Frenchman pulled from his coat a couple of sheets of
scrawled manuscript. He started to read from them:
“The
curtain goes up on a functional décor—a wire stretched between two supports, a
trapeze, and hanging rings. In the back, a sofa covered with a white bearskin.”
“I love the bearskin!” Radiguet smiled,
but Cocteau immediately silenced him with his hand as he continued to read from
his manuscript.
“Barbette
enters adorned in ostrich feathers and a flowing lamé evening gown. As he
removes his evening gown, he begins to perform a scabrous little scene—a real
masterpiece of pantomime, summing up in parody all the women he has ever
studied, becoming himself the woman—so
much so as to eclipse the prettiest girls who precede and follow him on the
program. Bursting on the audience as a ravishing creature he throws his dust
with such force that from then on he is free to concentrate on his wire work,
in which his masculine movements will help him instead of giving him away. He
is no mere acrobat in women’s clothes, nor just a graceful daredevil but one of
the most beautiful things in the theatre.”
AUTHOR INFORMATION:
Kyle
Taylor is the author of Wildflower, Exposition and Billion Dollar Dreamer.
The Kyle Taylor character debuted in Billion
Dollar Dreamer as a journalist who was assigned to write a story
about high school history teacher cum overnight billionaire John
Driskil. He resides in New York—and of course he is a work of
fiction! You can contact Kyle at BillionDollarDreamer@gmail.com.
Book Trailer on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuvxqzmRVqA
Author Web Page: http://www.billiondollardreamer.com/
Author Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002247108853&ref=tn_tnmn
Buy the book at
http://www.amazon.com/Wildflower-Dramatic-Barbette--Round-Rocks-Greatest/dp/1494839598/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1401327093&sr=8-1&keywords=wildflower+kyle+taylor
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/wildflower-kyle-taylor/1119333421?ean=9781494839598
GIVEAWAY:
a $25 Amazon gift card to the commenter who leaves the best question or comment
Please follow the tour and comment; the more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here: http://goddessfishpromotions.
Thanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteHow did you come up with the title "Wildflower"? Thanks for the excerpt and the giveaway.
ReplyDeleteHi Ardent E Reader - I want to give you a medal for even finding this page today. I have no idea how you did it. I was trying to think of a word that would somehow capture Barbette's feminine and masculine sides. I was also looking for something kind of Texan. I was worried because there are other books out there with Wildflower as a title. I thought it was funny that my subhead was a mile long, but I wanted to keep it that way. Thanks so much for responding.
ReplyDelete