GLR March-April 2023

accumulation of this information sparks the emotional charge in Horn’s experience of being tattooed and their subsequent ques tions about language, the body, and the illusion of permanence. Certain chapters—collections of facts, images, and anec dotes—can feel like scrapbooks of Horn’s intellectual passions, their most precious items revealed in impeccable, direct prose. To read this book is to share in Horn’s solace, to visit their world, where the past becomes prophesy. One learns to trust the author’s curiosity, and to admire their ability to curate this in vestigation into a compelling life in progress.

A S a fey young lad growing up in Reading, Berkshire, England, Simon Doonan lived with his nose buried in fashion maga zines, putting on fashion shows in the attic with his sister, garbed in their mum’s clothes. One Sunday morning, Doonan’s father Terry interrupted one of the shows. “Sensing there might be a pansy among the begonias,” the elder Doonan pulled young Simon to a win dow with a view of Reading Gaol, the Victorian prison where a certain playwright spent two years at hard labor. “Ho mosexuals lead lonely lives,” he told Simon. “They get beaten up and thrown in jail, just like Oscar Wilde. They get blackmailed too. They often commit suicide.” His father’s warning did nothing to deter the fashion-obsessed teenager, who came of age in the Swinging Sixties, from “aggressively pursuing fabulosity, fash ion, and music.” He became obsessed with early ’70s glam rock, especially that of David Bowie and his “Spider from Mars” guitarist Mick Ronson. In an inter view with Bowie, Simon learned about Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground, and his obsessions grew to include Lou Reed. Doonan writes that the year 1972 was pivotal not only in his life but for social change in general. “The counter-culture of the late ‘60s [had] loosened up the stays of midcentury respectability. ... Notions of sexual liberation, gender equality, androgyny, camp, uni sex style, [and] bisexuality are endlessly dissected.” That year, Sweden became the first country to legalize gender-affirming surgery, San Francisco outlawed employment discrimination based on sexual orien tation, and London held its first Gay Pride parade. The time was ripe, Doonan writes, for hitherto unimaginable change. For Doonan, two seminal al bums appeared that year: Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and Hank Trout has served as editor at a number of publications, most recently as senior editor for A&U: America’s AIDS Magazine . March–April 2023 news of the most recent chemical experiments to create pure black and complete darkness, quotations from the books of Gen esis and Revelation, and others from Ovid, Derek Jarman, and Heinrich Zimmerman. None of these are digressions; they are building blocks that support Horn’s style, looking outward in order to let the reader know what they feel. Another chapter is a selective history of tattoos, sources of ink, early parchment, and the use of punitive tattooing in cultures ranging from Polynesia and the Maori to Japan, England, India, Scythia, Siberia, Khakassia, and ancient Greece and Rome. The

Getting to the Wild Side

the Spiders from Mars and Lou Reed’s Transformer. Simon Doonan’s Transformer is a light hearted, deeply personal, thoroughly re searched examination of the social and artistic revolution in fashion and music ush ered in during the 1960s and ’70s, and the role of Transformer in that revolution. Along the way, Doonan sheds light on the notion of “camp” (and Susan Sontag’s provocative

H ANK T ROUT

TRANSFORMER A Story of Glitter, Glam Rock & Loving Lou Reed by Simon Doonan HarperOne. 160 pages, $24.99

Notes on Camp ); the influences of Warhol, the Velvet Under ground, and the Factory on art, music, and social mores; the history and omnipresence of drag in Britain and the U.S.; the role played by Warhol “superstars” Holly Wood lawn, Candy Darling, Jackie Curtis, and others in the creation of Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side”; Reed’s history of electro-shock therapy, drug dependency, poetic aspirations, and bad mar riages; and the reactions of both gays and “hets” to Reed’s best-selling album. It is a slim volume, but it’s packed with intelligent analysis and Doonan’s trademark humor. After moving to New York and becoming the window dresser (and later creative direc tor) at Barney’s, Doonan immersed himself in the nightlife, becoming a regular fixture at Max’s Kansas City and the Factory. Getting to knowAndy’s superstars, he developed a deep appreci ation for drag: “Drag takes so much effort and commit ment—if you have any doubts, try ‘tucking’ with duct tape and get back to me—it is safe to as sume that the motivations are many and vari ous.” These include gender expression, survival, revenge, a desire for attention (“those girls wanted to be gawked at and desired and unconditionally worshipped”), and money. “Drag is a power grab of the oth erwise powerless. Drag is a money grab of the otherwise broke. ... Holly, Candy, and Jackie ... were no strangers to financial desperation.” When Lou Reed encountered drag queens in NewYork, Doonan writes, drag was “transgressive, clandestine, taboo, and fun.” He celebrates the superstars’

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