James St. James on the ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS 'Freak Show’

Freak Show tells the story of Billy Bloom—self-described “gender obscurist”—who lands at the conservative Dwight D. Eisenhower Academy wearing Vivienne Westwood and ends up causing no end of mayhem. First, the inevitable question: how autobiographical is Freak Show?

The concept is completely autobiographic. But I hadn’t thought of writing for teens until Mark McVeigh at Dutton, who had read my earlier book, Disco Bloodbath [later made into the film Party Monster] called out of the blue and said I had a voice that would appeal to teens. Usually they try to keep me away from teens! Then I realized that as a 40-year-old drag queen I do have a lot to say to GLBT kids. The house, the school, it’s all me. I showed up for my first day in high school like Rosalind Russell in Auntie Mame, blowing air kisses. I realized in those first 30 seconds that I doomed the next four years. Throughout high school I got quieter and quieter. Billy is the person I wish I could have been.

Billy’s voice is extraordinary: pitch-perfect, staccato-paced, and outrageous. How did you create him?

Let’s face it; you’re never going to get a Civil War book out of me. There is so much of me in Billy. I have been writing for every gay and club magazine for the last 15 years, and I developed this voice. I can’t distance myself, I couldn’t be a journalist. It’s all me.

He’s so over-the-top, did you ever think: I have to rein him in?

In writing this book I was very aware of my audience. A lot of the time I wondered if I’d gone too far. Like when Billy gets an erection in gym class. I was so worried about that. But Mark said, “No, that stuff happens. If that’s what happens to your characters, go with it.” We don’t live in the 50s. Teen literature has to be true to what teens experience.

The toughest point in the book is when he gets attacked. Yet Billy remains so funny, as a reader I was in a very uncomfortable place.

Bad things are going to happen if you are a teen drag queen. As good as it may be to be a gay teen today, it’s still going to be hard. But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. That incident opened up a whole new world to Billy. He got closer to Flip. Everything that happens makes him more out, more proud.

When life gets tough for Billy—and it often does—he hides in the cupboard. Where did that come from?

I think there was a Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman episode where Mary just can’t take it anymore and hides in the cupboard. That always struck me as very powerful. I wanted to give today’s GLBT youth an Auntie Mame character of their own—over-the-top, life-affirming—combined with The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, where he goes into his imagination and thinks of a better life. I want kids to know that anytime you are going against the status quo, you are going to get shit. Things are going to be hard. But it is a valuable fight. Go ahead, break the rules. There is a power, a glory in being a freak.

I was surprised by the novel’s fast pace.

One of my big influences was Diana Vreeland’s memoir D.V. It was a life-changing book. When I read it, I had no idea who she was. But I loved how she grabbed the reader by the hand and raced them through her life, her parties. I have two influences sitting on my shoulders when I write, an angel and a devil. Diana is the angel, saying “More, more!” And Samuel Beckett is the devil, saying “Cut, cut!”

Are you pleased by the reviews this book has received?

My first book, Disco Bloodbath, was hardly reviewed, and the reviews were very bad. So this feels like a personal triumph. I’m always in love with my characters. Now, with Billy, it’s: they like him, they really like him!

Who should play Billy in the movie?

I originally thought it should be Lindsay Lohan—a girl playing a boy playing a girl. But I just saw Josh Hutcherson in Bridge to Terabithia. He’s incredible, such an awareness! There is one scene where he looks at Leslie, and it’s just how Billy looks at Flip.