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A review by vimcenzo
The House of Hidden Meanings by RuPaul
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
This may go down as one of the greatest memoirs of our time, and is a sterling example of what memoirs should be.
For starters, celebrity or not, this is not written like a salacious gossip rag, only intended to superficially probe the past of an internationally recognized drag queen and--just as superficially--receive a falsely humble response declaring some pithy tribulations on the way to success. Nor does this book dwell on the identity of the writer to make sweeping political declarations. RuPaul's identity is key to this book, and informs many aspects of it. But it is never turned outward, never placing some kind of blame on a system, never made into a soapbox to declare political opinion and what thre reader must believe. RuPaul's reflections are focused solely on himself and his development into what he would become--indeed, both the good and bad things he would become.
It's worth mentioning that while I was into RuPaul's Drag Race a decade ago, the legend of RuPaul himself was a strange, deific figure with self-sustaining hype who I could never relate to. All I knew was that (s)he was the arbiter and semi-literal queen that dictated who lived and died based on the accolade of the show itself. Well, first off, shows how much I knew--this book charts some of RuPaul's cultural omnipresence without really bragging and had me go "Oh! You were in Love Shack? Holy shit."
And second off: without any such accolades, I can easily recommend it to anyone who has zero understanding or awareness of RuPaul. It's a good place to start, at least, and you recognize that the accolades are well-earned by the virtue or RuPaul being very mindful and articulate. He's able to take aspects of his life and put a literary analysis on it, tease out meaning and meaningfully reflect on what a moment represented in his life when treated as though it were a grand narrative.
I felt very strange giving this a 5, but I can honestly find no faults in this book, or in what ways it failed to accomplish what it set out to accomplish. More memoirs should be written this way, and I have a bit of a taste for them now. I don't know that I'll read RuPaul's other works out of the fear they may be antiquated and less earnest than this, but for the time I spent with this, I do not regret it one bit. What was written will stick with me for years to come, I think, and I think it is an excellent book.
For starters, celebrity or not, this is not written like a salacious gossip rag, only intended to superficially probe the past of an internationally recognized drag queen and--just as superficially--receive a falsely humble response declaring some pithy tribulations on the way to success. Nor does this book dwell on the identity of the writer to make sweeping political declarations. RuPaul's identity is key to this book, and informs many aspects of it. But it is never turned outward, never placing some kind of blame on a system, never made into a soapbox to declare political opinion and what thre reader must believe. RuPaul's reflections are focused solely on himself and his development into what he would become--indeed, both the good and bad things he would become.
It's worth mentioning that while I was into RuPaul's Drag Race a decade ago, the legend of RuPaul himself was a strange, deific figure with self-sustaining hype who I could never relate to. All I knew was that (s)he was the arbiter and semi-literal queen that dictated who lived and died based on the accolade of the show itself. Well, first off, shows how much I knew--this book charts some of RuPaul's cultural omnipresence without really bragging and had me go "Oh! You were in Love Shack? Holy shit."
And second off: without any such accolades, I can easily recommend it to anyone who has zero understanding or awareness of RuPaul. It's a good place to start, at least, and you recognize that the accolades are well-earned by the virtue or RuPaul being very mindful and articulate. He's able to take aspects of his life and put a literary analysis on it, tease out meaning and meaningfully reflect on what a moment represented in his life when treated as though it were a grand narrative.
I felt very strange giving this a 5, but I can honestly find no faults in this book, or in what ways it failed to accomplish what it set out to accomplish. More memoirs should be written this way, and I have a bit of a taste for them now. I don't know that I'll read RuPaul's other works out of the fear they may be antiquated and less earnest than this, but for the time I spent with this, I do not regret it one bit. What was written will stick with me for years to come, I think, and I think it is an excellent book.