Rough Amusements: The True Story of A'Lelia Walker, Patroness of the Harlem Renaissance's Down-Low Culture - Hardcover

Neihart, Ben

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1582342857 ISBN 13: 9781582342856

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA, 2003

Synopsis

From acclaimed novelist Ben Neihart, a vibrant portrait of gay Harlem's most memorable diva: A'Lelia Walker.

When A'Lelia Walker died in 1931 after a midnight snack of lobster and chocolate cake washed down with champagne, it marked the end of one of the most striking social careers in New York's history. The daughter of rags-to-riches multi-millionaire Madame C.J. Walker (the washerwoman who marketed the most successful straightening technique for African American hair), A'Lelia was America's first black poor little rich girl, using her inheritance to throw elaborate, celebrity-packed parties in her Westchester Mansion and her 136th Street would-be salon, 'Dark Tower'.

In Rough Amusements, third in Bloomsbury's Urban Historicals series, Neihart takes us into the heart of A'Lelia's world-gay Harlem in the 1920s. In tracing its cultural antecedents, he delves into the sexual subculture of nineteenth-century New York, exploring mixed-race prostitution; the bachelorization of New York society; French Balls ("the most sophisticated forum for testing the boundaries of urban sexual behavior"); and The Slide (New York's most depraved nineteenth-century bar). Using A'Lelia's lavish parties as a jumping-off point, Neihart traces the line connecting Davy Crockett's world without women to Walt Whitman's boundless love of beautiful men to A'Lelia's cultivation of the racial, social, and sexual risk that defined the Harlem Renaissance.

About this title

About the Author:

Ben Neihart is the author of the novels Hey, Joe and Burning Girl . His writing has appeared in such publications as The New Yorker, Travel & Leisure, The Baltimore Sun, and Book Forum. He lives in Brooklyn.

From Publishers Weekly:

Novelist Neihart's fun, quick read on the Harlem Renaissance's barely veiled gay culture is framed through the lens of the 1930 Faggots Ball, an annual drag bash that served as a precursor to the gay balls of today. One of the grand dames of the event was A'Lelia Walker, a rich giant of a woman. Though the events and figures are real, Neihart (Burning Girl) points out that he's taken great liberties in imagining scenes and dialogue, and presents his work more as historical fiction. A'Lelia was the daughter of Madame C.J. Walker (see above). Neihart's A'Lelia inherited her mother's knack for playing it grand, but she did it in the context of decadent parties where she kept her favorite people close to her side, including writer Langston Hughes and right-hand woman (and possible lover) Mayme White. The book has far less to do with A'Lelia Walker than it does with down-low culture; readers are given hints about the sexual mores of Renaissance figures like Richard Nugent and Harold Jackman. But the mini-portraits of these figures pale in comparison to the book's most compelling sketch, that of the wretched "baby-doll fairy" Jennie June, aka Earl Lind. Basing his sketch on Lind's memoirs, Neihart shows how June's appetite for sex and male domination refused to be satiated, even after some of her sex partners horrifically abused her. Those looking for in-depth, scholarly analysis of A'Lelia Walker's life as a troubled heir won't find that here. Also expect no major illuminations of drag-queen culture; much of the work's smoky, tragic (bordering on stereotypical) terrain has been already covered elsewhere. Instead, this breezy, over-the-top narrative romps through the rough amusements of parties, sex and violence.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1582342857
• ISBN 13: 9781582342856
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160