A 2024 Stonewall Honor Book
Vogue’s Best LGBTQ+ Books of 2023
Booklist’s Best History Books of 2023
An intimate, evocative history of drag in New York City exploring its dynamic role, from the Jazz Age to Drag Race, in queer liberation and urban life.
From the lush feather boas that adorned early female impersonators to the sequined lip syncs of barroom queens to the drag kings that have us laughing in stitches, drag has played a vital role in the creative life of New York City. But the evolution of drag in the city—as an art form, a community, and a mode of liberation—has never before been fully chronicled. Now, for the first time, journalist and drag historian Elyssa Maxx Goodman unearths the dramatic, provocative untold story of drag in New York City in all its glistening glory. Goodman ducks beneath the velvet ropes of Harlem Renaissance balls, examines drag’s crucial role in the Stonewall Uprising, traces drag's influence on disco and punk rock as well as its unifying power during the AIDS crisis and 9/11, and culminates in the era of RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Informed by meticulous research and archival work, as well as original interviews with high-profile performers, Glitter and Concrete is a significant contribution to queer history and an essential read for anyone curious about the story that echoes beneath the heels.
“Glitter and Concrete is precise and comprehensive and beautifully written. It brings to life the whole long tragic-comic history of drag in New York. As a gay New Yorker I learned as much as I relived. It is indispensable!"
-Edmund White"Glitter and Concrete is so much more than a simple deep dive into the glamorously complex world of drag in New York City; it stands as testament to the art form's roots of revolution and protest. Combining exhaustive research and razor-sharp prose, Elyssa Maxx Goodman pays homage to drag’s vitally important, necessary role in the larger American consciousness and of its refusal to be culturally exorcised. I loved every minute of this dazzling book."
—Alex Espinoza, author of Cruising: An Intimate History of a Radical Pastime
“What a gift downtown historian Elyssa Maxx Goodman has given us with her rigorously researched ode to drag through the ages! A love letter to New York City past and present, Glitter and Concrete documents drag's shimmering potential for community, self-expression, and pure joy.”
-Ada Calhoun, New York Times bestselling author of St. Marks Is Dead
"Glamor. Survival. Performance. Community—That’s drag… and that’s New York. And that’s why this remarkable book is so important. Elyssa Goodman takes us all the way to the 19th century and back to explore and explain the special role drag has played in making New York the place where the world comes to truly be itself. Deeply researched and featuring a cast of characters who can truly be described as fabulous, Glitter and Concrete is urban history on fire."
— Thomas Dyja, author of New York, New York, New York: Four Decades of Success, Excess, and Transformation