There is a great book within these pages, evident in stretches of beautiful writing and descriptive passages. However, as a whole, this book disappointed me. As I began this fiction book, I realized that the characters were based on real people—no names changed—made famous by the 1990 documentary PARIS IS BURNING, a seminal film about drag queen ball culture in 80s NYC, a wonderful window into the mostly African-American, Latnix, gay, trans people that banded together to form communities called 'houses.' I paused about a quarter into the book to watch it, and then came back to the book feeling less dazzled by comparison, since they are so similar. The vibrant, effervescent, humorous, and deeply layered quality of the real people depicted in the 78-minute film did not come through in the 15-hour audiobook. So, this may all be my own fault due to the context in which I read it.

THE HOUSE OF IMPOSSIBLE BEAUTIES feels like a cautious, safe attempt to write fiction about real people without tarnishing their personal legacies, and to the culture on which they left an indelible mark. I completely understand that, but it also somehow tamped the energy and made the dialogue particularly staid. I do think that there is a great ball culture fiction novel out there that I have yet to read; Ryan Murphy has brought a version of it to life in his excellent tv series POSE, but this book isn't quite it. It made me excited, though, for more fiction about this time and period and people that we see so little depicted. (Sidenote: I spoke about this with a friend and we both named the same author we'd love to see bring the warmth, love, camraderie, devestation, despair to this history in fiction.