Craig Olson

This was both wonderful and sad to read: the first because it celebrates the lives and struggles of the pre-Stonewall generation of drag queens; the latter because of the inevitable history of prejudice, oppression and trauma.

Olsen intersperses the letters written by a group of sisters to each other in the '50s with modern testimony from those he was able to find and interview, and with examples of similarities and differences of his own experiences of growing up post-Stonewall.

Olsen's finding of Daphne, now an elderly man who had left his drag identity behind, and his opening up to a listener who was eager to hear the stories of his youth and the found family who mutually supported each other, was really moving. 5🏳️‍🌈… (meer)