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A defiant yet tender memoir about drag culture and bipolar disorder that reveals the hard-earned truths of being queer in the American Midwest
In Drag Thing, Gabe Montesanti recounts her immersive entrance into St. Louis drag culture performing as Fender Bender, a drag king who ultimately transforms into a "drag thing" (a performer who defies classification altogether).
Exploring the fluidity of gender and identity through parody and honest self-exposure, Montesanti learns about binding and the art of facial hair and contouring, and she designs and constructs her own elaborate costumes with minimal budget and maximal imagination. As she clambers for success on the stage with snowballing intensity and copes with estrangement from her family of origin, she fights for her sanity—for her life—in her battle with treatment-resistant bipolar disorder, until her drag persona and her rapid cycling mania become indistinguishable from each other.
Drag Thing is a raucous, invigorating story of breakdown and self-invention, delusion and authenticity, set against a backdrop of anti-queer, anti-trans violence in which drag becomes a symbol of endangerment, glamour, and rebellion. Punctuated throughout with the author's drawings that bring "thingness" to life, Drag Thing is an anthem to the hard-won survival of a singular spirit.
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"A candidly drawn self-portrait brimming with resiliency."
―Kirkus
"This is the memoir of a bipolar Midwestern drag king who evolves into a 'drag thing,' exploring the fluidity, art, intensity and rebellion of survival. With candor and humor, Montesanti offers revelations of self-care and resilience."
―Ms. Magazine
"From Texas to St. Louis, from depression to mania and back again, and into and out of the handcrafted costumery of drag, sparkling with glue-gunned rhinestones, and rattling with fake fingernails, Gabe Montesanti's Drag Thing is an outsider masterpiece, a picaresque of her quest for a self and a home she can call her own. Set against the backdrop of escalating violence against queer bodies, Gabe's story is one of the enticements of art as a platform of survival and of its perilous intensity, as she discovers she is neither king nor queen but thing, reigning over the grand in-between."
—Diane Seuss, author of frank: sonnets and Modern Poetry
"Gabe invites us to skip the line past the polished forms of drag that we see in the mainstream and leads us into the crowded back rooms of Midwestern gay bars to experience the realities of queerness in America. Drag Thing feels so personal and real that I felt like I was right next to Gabe through all of it—the pressing anxiety of ever-present gun violence, the euphoria of building queer community as resistance, and finding out who you are as you create yourself on stage."
—Rose Butch, a.k.a. The Original Non-Binary Drag Thing
"I couldn't put this book down! Drag Thing is an electrifying, poignant, and fiercely tender journey into the intimate world of drag and mental health. Gabe pulls us deep into the raw, vibrant core of queer life—where chosen family, drag artistry, and survival collide in the face of a world that continues to marginalize and misunderstand. With prose that drips with emotion and fire, this book reveals the beauty and resilience of drag communities, the sacred bonds of drag families, and the radical tenderness that lives in between. A powerful celebration of queer kinship, vulnerability, and the lifeline that drag offers—it's a feast of truth you'll want to devour."
—Julián Delgado Lopera, author of Fiebre Tropical
Gabe Montesanti (she/they) is the author of Brace for Impact: A Memoir (The Dial Press), which chronicles her time skating for Arch Rival Roller Derby. She is also a former drag performer. She earned her bachelor's in studio art and mathematics from Kalamazoo College and her MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing from Washington University in St. Louis. She has attended artist residencies at Sundress Academy for the Arts, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and Storyknife Writers Retreat in Homer, Alaska. Raised in Michigan, she now lives in St. Louis.