The Art of Drag

Wigs have never looked taller, nor eye shadow so excessive. The result is a truly fabulous combination history and gift book. * Publisher's Weekly *
The broad-minded perspective [The Art of Drag] adopts when looking to the past translates into how it looks to the future, too. * I-D Magazine: The Vixen and Crystal Rasmussen on the future of drag *
Accompanying Hall's extensive history is a seemingly endless supply of bold illustrations, created in collaboration with artists Sofie Birkin, Helen Li, and Jasjyot Singh Hans. * Dazed Digital *
The colour work is in the book is gorgeous too, it's a beautiful book that any fan of drag would love. * rareopalreads on Instagram *
A lavishly illustrated guide hopes to tell the complete story of the Art of Drag * @Creativeboom on Twitter *
Helen Li, Jake Hall, Jasjyot Singh Hans and Sofie Birkin's book is a tremendous feat of inclusivity that should have queers and straights alike reaching for it. * Pop Matters *
An upcoming non-fiction book, full of gorgeous art. It shows readers the history of drag through beautiful illustration and fun comic characters. * Book Riot *
Meticulously details everything from the ancient beginnings of drag to its present day ubiquity... and explores how fashion, theatre, gender and politics come together to create the fabulous art form. * Dazed *
Fun, thorough and so beautiful! It taught me more about drag than I could have ever imagined. -- Amelia Abraham * Queer Intentions *
The book is an essential guide to drag, its history, its impact and its continued potency. -- Amrou Al-Kadhi * Unicorn *
Utterly desirable as an art object but also hugely informative about the art of drag. -- Juno Roche * Trans Power *
A colorful compendium of queer history. From ancient times to the modern day, human beings have bent and broken rules about gender through clothing, makeup, and performance. Tracing this history through to the possible future, Hall attempts to synthesize larger theories of drag and queer liberation while also providing thumbnail sketches of individuals, communities, and timeframes. They use a cheery tone to introduce readers to Kabuki theater in Japan, the Peking opera, British pantomime, the Pansy Craze of early-20th-century New York City, the Harlem ballroom scene that came to prominence in the 1980s, and other subjects. The book also introduces famous drag queens like House Mother Crystal LaBeija, RuPaul, Divine, and masc-presenting performers and drag kings like Gladys Alberta Bentley and Stormé DeLarverie (though William Dorsey Swann, a formerly enslaved Black pioneer of American drag, is noticeably missing). Through mostly serviceable prose, occasionally given to run-on sentences or vague platitudes, the book addresses the impact that drag has within queer communities and references the social change created by drag, though readers seeking concrete information about the material impact that drag has had on policy and legislation will be disappointed. The illustrations by a variety of artists offer stylized, full-color renderings of the people mentioned. Useful and optimistic. * Kirkus Reviews *