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A review by liralen
The Other Side by Nan Goldin
4.0
I love Goldin's photographs for their rawness, I think, and their intimacy. The Other Side didn't resonate quite as much with me as [b:The Ballad of Sexual Dependency|98865|Nan Goldin The Ballad of Sexual Dependency|Nan Goldin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1312038525s/98865.jpg|913655], though I'm not sure whether that's because she didn't have quite the same level of entree into the world of drag that she did into the world of relationships or just that I didn't see relationships develop in the same way through this book.
This is not the flashy, campy setting of RuPaul's Drag Race (which, don't get me wrong, I adore), or the clean, tidy drag of, say, Kinky Boots (which I also adore). It's messier and much more about the behind-the-scenes. This is the 70s and 80s: glamour and grunge and fabulousness and uncertainty and, eventually the AIDS epidemic. I really love that Goldin talks, in the introduction, about not just drag but gender and sexuality, refusing to keep her subjects and friends and lovers in a simple 'nothing but drag' box.
Someday I will have a permanent living space with room for a library (and money to spend on filling that library), and I'll get as many of Goldin's books as I can find to include in that library.
This is not the flashy, campy setting of RuPaul's Drag Race (which, don't get me wrong, I adore), or the clean, tidy drag of, say, Kinky Boots (which I also adore). It's messier and much more about the behind-the-scenes. This is the 70s and 80s: glamour and grunge and fabulousness and uncertainty and, eventually the AIDS epidemic. I really love that Goldin talks, in the introduction, about not just drag but gender and sexuality, refusing to keep her subjects and friends and lovers in a simple 'nothing but drag' box.
Someday I will have a permanent living space with room for a library (and money to spend on filling that library), and I'll get as many of Goldin's books as I can find to include in that library.