Queens of the (pre-)Stone(wall) Age
Blanche "Blackie" Cohen, butch vixen and golden-throated star of the
nightly drag review at Greenwich Village club The Candy Box, cannot
believe the callousness shown by her boss, mob associate and all-around
bad-guy Stevie the Frenchman, at the young queen just found dead in the
Men's room by Tyrone, the club's black laborer. While Stevie would love
to pin the murder on Tyrone -- no one is going to try to prove the
innocence of a black kid -- he cannot take the risk of having his business
shut down. With a mayoral race, led in the polls by a tough-on-crime
district attorney, thanks in no part to the headlines screaming about
homosexual deviants and the need for a McCarthyesque crackdown of homosexual
activity of the type proudly but clandestinely displayed at his club,
Stevie can ill afford the heat that such a discovery might bring to his
business and his higher-ups. Furthermore, things being as they are, no
amount of hush money to New York's easily corrupted Finest is going to
make this problem disappear, since the likely mayor-elect is the chief
of police, who would love to make an example out of this convenient
situation to push his campaign over the top. While Blackie wants to call
the police, Stevie has other plans: arrangements are made to hide the
corpse on the next ship leaving for a foreign port. Any further talk of
the stiff, now hidden in the freezer, Stevie warns, and there will be
two bodies taking a trip across the pond.
Knowledge of her inability to discuss the dead boy, for fear of having
an eternal roommate, and thoughts of her ex-girlfriend Renee, an
alcoholic floozy who recently flew the coop to work as a prostitute at Madame
Lucille's brothel, have Blackie feeling down. For some reason though,
against her better judgment, Blackie just can't seem to get the image
of that pretty young boy out of her head and informs her good friend and
co-worker, legendary drag performer Titanic, of her intentions to get
to the bottom of the mystery. At least, she reasons, the boy's family
ought to know. Titanic, in all his drag wisdom, suggests she meet a
rich girl, settle down, and forget about The Candy Box, her dreams of
stardom, and most of all, the boy. Seizing the moment, he introduces
Blackie to young socialite Didi Fletcher-Payne -- daughter of multimillionaire
newspaper magnate, degenerate gambler, and prostitute patron John Jay
Fletcher-Payne, and herself quite a hot dish -- who bears an uncanny
resemblance to the boy.
Unbeknownst to Blackie, Didi, and the reader, we are all about to
embark into the dark underbelly of 1950's New York, a place where the
"straight" and "proper" big-wigs have more to hide and infinitely much more
to be ashamed of -- are more closeted -- than the marginalized gay
community under fire in the press and on the streets, where the word
faggot is a common epithet and police gay-bashing is sanctioned and
encouraged.
Splitting her energy, Blackie concentrates on winning the love of Didi
and gumshoeing about New York to solve a murder mystery. Her detective
work drops her deep into the sub-altern world while her infatuation
finds her cracking the socialite barrier. As Blackie soon finds out
however, divergent paths often interlace. What once seemed like a static
barrier is
now seen to have gaping holes that easily allow exchange between two
worlds.
Further, as readers, we find that within such meetings, the secrets of
straight society are often far more dangerous that the passions of
anything considered queer. Family secrets abound, and Faustian bargains,
even those that might prevent a murdered boy receiving justice, are
often the only means of saving face. Successfully dancing around, avoiding
Stevie's
suspicion, Renee's jealousy, and outing Didi prove to be too much to
keep quiet about as the inevitable suspense builds and ugly secrets are
revealed.
Under the Mink is an exciting, brilliant piece of noir set in an
intersection of several elements of the New York of a different age, that
one we lust for when we watch mob movies and read crime novels. The
intermingling of gay nightlife, organized crime, crooked cops, socialites,
and political scandal is fleshed-out coherently to create a story where
lives that are worlds apart collide in supernova flashes catalyzed by
issues of race, gender, homophobia, class, and power. Following the
genre's standard roadmap of twists and turns, author Lisa E. Davis
successfully avoids cliché vehicles while yanking readers around curves to
create a sense of swirling vertigo. Davis has added a new sub-genre,
(proudly) gay, to a classic form, noir, weaving fine writing with an
underlying sense of celebration for the fringe. With major unpredictable
swerves and a scandalous ending, this book belongs on the reading list
of any fan of detective, mystery, or suspense novels.
