The House of Impossible Beauties: A Novel
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
NAMED A RECOMMENDED BOOK OF 2018 BY Buzzfeed • The Wall Street Journal • The Millions • Southern Living • Bustle • Esquire • Entertainment Weekly • Nylon • Mashable • Libary Journal • Thrillist
“Cassaras’s propulsive and profound first novel, finding one’s home in the world—particularly in a subculture plagued by fear and intolerance from society—comes with tragedy as well as extraordinary personal freedom.” -- Esquire
A gritty and gorgeous debut that follows a cast of gay and transgender club kids navigating the Harlem ball scene of the 1980s and ’90s, inspired by the real House of Xtravaganza made famous by the seminal documentary Paris Is Burning
It’s 1980 in New York City, and nowhere is the city’s glamour and energy better reflected than in the burgeoning Harlem ball scene, where seventeen-year-old Angel first comes into her own. Burned by her traumatic past, Angel is new to the drag world, new to ball culture, and has a yearning inside of her to help create family for those without. When she falls in love with Hector, a beautiful young man who dreams of becoming a professional dancer, the two decide to form the House of Xtravaganza, the first-ever all-Latino house in the Harlem ball circuit. But when Hector dies of AIDS-related complications, Angel must bear the responsibility of tending to their house alone.
As mother of the house, Angel recruits Venus, a whip-fast trans girl who dreams of finding a rich man to take care of her; Juanito, a quiet boy who loves fabrics and design; and Daniel, a butch queen who accidentally saves Venus’s life. The Xtravaganzas must learn to navigate sex work, addiction, and persistent abuse, leaning on each other as bulwarks against a world that resists them. All are ambitious, resilient, and determined to control their own fates, even as they hurtle toward devastating consequences.
Told in a voice that brims with wit, rage, tenderness, and fierce yearning, The House of Impossible Beauties is a tragic story of love, family, and the dynamism of the human spirit.
Joseph Cassara
Joseph Cassara was born and raised in New Jersey. He holds degrees from Columbia University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has been a writing fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. This is his first novel.
Related to The House of Impossible Beauties
Related ebooks
Lightfall: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Thirty Names of Night: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hola Papi: How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Neotenica Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Prettiest Star Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Diary of a Drag Queen Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An Ordinary Wonder: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Favorite Girlfriend was a French Bulldog Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cleanness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brown Neon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mislaid: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Girls Burn Brighter: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5While England Sleeps: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The History of Living Forever: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Had No Rules Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Story of a Marriage: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crosshairs: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Funeral Diva Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Queer Intentions: A (Personal) Journey Through LGBTQ+ Culture Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Can't Date Jesus: Love, Sex, Family, Race, and Other Reasons I've Put My Faith in Beyoncé Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vice Patrol: Cops, Courts, and the Struggle over Urban Gay Life before Stonewall Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAfter Francesco: A Haunting Must-Read Perfect for Book Clubs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dominicana: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Logical Family: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fiebre Tropical: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Miseducation of Cameron Post Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5So Many Ways to Sleep Badly Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5After the Parade: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Literary Fiction For You
The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prophet Song: A Novel (Booker Prize Winner) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master & Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Catch-22: 50th Anniversary Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pride and Prejudice: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Queen's Gambit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tender Is the Flesh Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Piranesi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anna Karenina: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leave the World Behind: A Read with Jenna Pick Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I'm Thinking of Ending Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Woman in the Room: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5East of Eden Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Little Birds: Erotica Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Demon Copperhead: A Pulitzer Prize Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Nigerwife: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady Tan's Circle of Women: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Camp Zero: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Salvage the Bones: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sympathizer: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The House of Impossible Beauties
48 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My heart was filled and broken between the covers of this book. Every other metaphor falls short. This amount of depth and electricity comes from a debut author? Joseph Cassara, I will read everything you publish.
I have rarely encountered the pull of a place in a novel. Setting has always been tangential, necessary for plot, but contextually unimportant. When booktalking this title, I've remarked upon being thrust into 1980s New York City, seeing the heat steam off the sidewalk in the summertime, even though it's sweater weather where I live now. I fell hard for Hector, Venus, Juanito, Dorian, Angel, Daniel... I can't say they were my friends; they probably would have next to no patience with me, as an outsider. But none of them would let me go until I had properly mourned for each of them. The world truly is richer for having them in it, and yet, the world has no idea what it has lost. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I wanted to love it and I did love the characters, but for a novel supposedly about participants in New York's drag ball scene, there was very little mention of or time spent at the actual balls. There were also some mis-used words that took me out of the story for a moment. (Sorry I don't have any examples. I have the choice of either trying to lose myself in the story, or reading with post-its and pen and I choose the former.) There is a lot of good here, but, to me, it felt like it needed more work.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An extravagant look into one particular House from the Harlem Ball Scene of the 1980's, Cassara's debut novel focuses on the royalty that is House Xtravaganza. It was certainly an interesting choice to use names of queer trans ancestors (who can be found in the film Paris is Burning). One review asks if the author is considering paying the House survivors royalties, for the use of their names. A good question, and one I would love an answer to.
My favourite thing about Cassara is the way he writes dialogue. He writes dialogue so, so flawlessly. I can hear their voices, their tone, the back and forth of English and Spanish was just a spectacular combination.
This feels like Ru Paul's Drag Race, except it hasn't been made consumable by white cis hetero audiences. It feels authentic and like a living, breathing thing. Cassara mentions Keith Haring, a famous LGBTQ artist and activist, and I was able to pull up a non-fiction book and find Haring's work right in front of me while I read.
One complaint I read on a review here is that some of the characters are too similar. Maybe they are. Did I really care? Not at all. In fact some of the similarities between the characters helped me to understand that the author really was writing about queer culture.
It took me a long time to read because of how heavy it could be sometimes, so: trigger warnings for ALL the things. Drug use, survival sex, sexual assault, prostitution, child abuse.
I'm trying to articulate how much I love this book but I really am falling short. Cassara took away my words.
I'm still crying from the ending. - Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Why did you use the lives of people you don't know much about (the author spoke in interviews about not being able to attend any NYC ballroom events or contact any of the loved ones of the people he used as the inspirations for his characters), whose history is badly mis-remembered by most of the LGBT community, and whose experiences are outside of your own? Also, the book towards the end sort of started to center two of the male characters in a way that made me feel like, "wow even in a fictional retelling that tries to bring these women more to life, they're still pushed to the side."I know I'm a super harsh critic of books, but I just felt like this had some issues with historical details (timeline of certain AIDS crisis events and pop culture references were off are two concrete ones) that made me question whether the author did the research required to write authentically about lives quite different from his own.