(courtesy Annick Press)
When you read about some conservative group or another working to ban gay this or bay that in the dubiously-expressed, and wafer-thin justified – let’s be honest, not even that; bigotry seems to thrive on vehement, evidence-free denunciation and little else – it’s often presented as little more than a piece of dispassionate journalistic reporting.
But the truth is, of course, is that there are real people affected by all this moral posturing, people like the protagonist of Dragging Mason County by Curtis Campbell, who along with his fabulously confidant BFF, Alan aka drag queen Aggie Culture, know all too well that there is a devastatingly personal consequence to the actions of the bigots and the phobes of whatever stripe of the day seems hatefully appealing.
There are real people at the heart of this hate-filled storm, and in this savagely funny, sparklingly clever and highly entertaining novel with a thoughtfully insightful heart, they must contend with all manner of prejudice while, rather daringly, staging the first drag extravaganza ever in highly conservative Mason County, a place where being queer in any way, shape or form is not exactly a golden ticket to social acceptability.
So, while there are a million reasons NOT to stage this flamboyantly fabulous and highly artistic love letter to drag queen culture, and the important role it plays in helping a diverse range of late teen gays work out who it is they are at heart, they see no choice but to go ahead with this trailblazing statement.
Tilly pops an eyebrow, waiting for me to blow him off. But I don’t. I don’t do anything, actually. I stand there, weighing my options. One of the things about living in the middle of nowhere is that awkward silences are often punctuated by actual crickets.
Maybe this is about more than just drag. Maybe the kind of guy who would throw Mason County’s first drag extravaganza can’t be so bad, after all.
One of the central grounded delights of Dragging Mason County is that they don’t undertake this journey into the queer cultural unknown for the high and lofty reasons it subsequently acquires.
In fact, the decision to stage the controversial event – not to the drag queens or Alan and Peter’s bestie, Tilly, who see it as a natural expression of their quite uncontroversial lives – comes down purely to the fact that they want to impress a guy called Lorne, who just happens to be the gay-bating queen of the local high school.
Weirdly for someone who spends her very rich days, when she’s not picking the perfect outfit, seemingly thinking up ways to humiliate Alan in particular, who is a big boy and not even remotely close to the gay archetype, and pimply, flabby Peter, her bestie is a guy called, rather wonderfully, Brison Dallas, who is a queen bee who delights in bullying his fellow gays.
There’s no gays against the straights dynamic at work here, and so relentless is Brison’s taunting, that one day Peter snaps and unleashes a trademark barrage of hateful commentary, that while its genesis is perfectly understandable (a guy can only take so much persecution, you know?), is cruel and awful in its own way, leading to Peter becoming pilloried, and worse, on social media.
He is suddenly a pariah, and even worse, a gay man labelled as anti-gay, and he takes on production of the drag extravaganza in the hope that maybe it will rehabilitate him.
Not much pressure, then, right?
Actually quite a bit, and as Peter and Alan, who is supremely sure of himself in a way that cranky, keep-the-world-at-bay-through-savage-putdowns Peter can only dream of – which he’s NOT doing thank you since he secretly (actually not so secretly) looks down on his bestie for drawing unnecessary attention to himself in some uncomfortably flamboyant ways, an internalised homophobia common to many of us queer folk who’ve had to fight all kinds of abuse all our lives and somehow, cruelly, ingest it – launch in their plan to drag up Mason County, it comes clear there’s more happening that simply putting an epically queer stage show of sequins and song.
What is really at the heart of staging the show, and Dragging Mason County itself, is a coming of age where Peter has to grapple not just with the hate without, but the hate within, with the young man who is ostensibly out and proud, realising over the course of some very bumpy and emotionally difficult events that teach him a ton of life events (and almost cost him his friendship with Alan), that he doesn’t really like himself very much.
On the surface, he thinks he does; after all, when the outer persecution is relentless and unforgiving, you barricade yourself against it and in so doing, think you are incredibly sure of who you are.
Alan turns and begins to walk home. For a second I think to call out to him. I should catch up and apologize for going behind his back. For using my first kiss as a weapon against my best friend.
But I’m just a vile hate-spewing rage machine. On the lawn next to me, a sprinkler clicks to life as Alan’s footsteps fade.
But Peter is, and he isn’t, and much of the sheer liberating joy of Dragging Mason County, which is full of observational zinger and witty oneliners full of incredibly clever wordplay, is watching as Peter, quite believably, stumbles from one dubious decision to another, his mouth both his protector and foe, until it dawns on him that maybe his friends are right, after all.
So, yes, while there is plenty of vehement opposition to their plan from some very scary people – what’s interesting about many of the conservative people who oppose gay events is how they are often more twisted and unnatural than the gorgeously free queers they denounce with not an ounce of loving humanity; who has their heart more in the right place? Not the bigots, that’s for sure – and putting on a show with a gaggle of drag queens comes with its own fierce challenges, there’s also a lot of truth and insight to be gained from it.
In fact, in a novel that is full of witty banter and bitingly funny wordplay that will have you gasping in delight at its emotionally on-point accuracy, there’s also a tremendous amount of heart and empathetic thoughtfulness from a writer who has clearly lived taken this same journey to some considerable degree.
Full of happy acceptance and a thousand degrees of internalised hate that soon becomes something much more wonderful, and with a keen eye on the way in which the outside world thoughtlessly and unkindly attacks that which it does not know and understand, Dragging Mason County is a funny, insightful, highly-relatable and character-rich exploration of what it means to be yourself, why friendship matters above almost all else, and why even when you are told you are worth nothing that you are in fact worth everything and that you need to not only accept that yourself but tell the world, loud and proud, as well.