The Queens' Ball

by Copi, Kit Schluter (Translator)

Set among the flamboyant demi-monde of the 1970s Paris underground, The Queens’ Ball follows the narrator Copi in his attempt to write a novel as life comes undone around him. His Roman lover Pietro is stolen by a Marilyn Monroe impersonator whose coterie take up residence in Copi’s flat and pump out low-budget pornographic rags and films. His friends leave him, burnt out from the theatrical excess of the decade. And worst of all his editor keeps calling him, demanding to know where the book is. Propelled by Copi’s careening prose and incisive humor, The Queens’ Ball swerves from Paris to Ibiza to New York and back again in a whirlwind frenzy of love, loss, and madness. Featuring an illuminating critical appendix by Copi’s current French editor, Thibaud Croisy, Kit Schluter’s rhapsodic translation marks the début of Copi’s world-renowned fiction in English.

The Queen’s Ball is a heedless novel of transformation of bodies and tenses, a novel of enormity and loss which is, in the end, about writing a novel. Copi is a feckless romantic-his theme is the persistence of love in the phantasmagoria. His tender psychos hurtle through increasingly outré adventures that seem to expand and contract like accordions. Here is crime à la française. Here is a great queen’s verbal aggression, radiant detail, and joyous destructive energy. —Robert Glück

The Queens’ Ball is probably Copi’s masterpiece... By 1978, Copi was already an aesthetic: The Queens’ Ball was the magnet, the inverted whirlpool that brought that aesthetic to the surface. —César Aira

Genres: Queer, Fiction, France, Book Club, LGBT, Literature

212 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Raúl Damonte Botana, better known by the nom de plume Copi (for "copito de nieve", Spanish for "little snowflake"), was an Argentine writer, cartoonist, and playwright who spent most of his career in Paris.

Reviews

[Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

4⭐️
This book was insane and disgusting at times...I liked it.

I want to say right off the bat: THIS BOOK IS NOT FOR EVERYONE. There are some scenarios and situations that occur in this book that do make light of taboo and serious subjects that will shock the general reader. So, READER DISGRESSION IS HEAVILY ADVISED!

That said, if you're a fan of John Waters or any of his films, you might need to read this book! This was a surrealist romp through a queer man's mind in the 1960-70's, including sex, drugs, death, and more. Yet, amongst all the insanity, there is heart and humanity, fixed within it is love and connection, a question of what it means to exist in the world.

Wading through surrealist imagery, run-on thoughts, and high-intensity scenes, this book does not shy away from the "hard to imagine", but embraces it whole-heartedly. If I had a nickel for every time I looked up from this book and said, "What did I just read?" I'd be a wealthy man today... So, if you're brave enough (or insane enough) pick this book up.

[Colin · Rating 2 out of 5]

my MOM bought me this saying she loved it when she was young ???? help

[Il Pech · Rating 4 out of 5]

"È la terza volta in un anno che mi metto a scrivere questo romanzo il cui soggetto non deve interessarmi poi molto se, appena arrivo alla fine di un quaderno, il giorno stesso lo perdo. [...] E vi dirò subito che si tratta di un romanzo poliziesco, che ci sono parecchi delitti e due colpevoli ma niente polizia. Ecco la mia proposta: in questo romanzo sarò un masochista. Diciamo che l'ho scoperto nel 1965.."


Poi c'è un boa che vive in frigo, un gay che si fa scopare l'ombelico, una lupa che ha cresciuto tre bimbi hippy, una vecchia chiromante, una sosia di Marylin vergine, un mucchio di travestiti, un ragazzo sballinato di LSD si crede un guru o Gesù Cristo e mangia solo olive denocciolate, c'è un abito di capelli umani, travestiti che telefonano tutto il giorno, Parigi, New York, Roma, Ibiza, una gamba asportata, molti, troppi vodka-orange, canne a nastro, un criceto finisce nel culo di un tizio, Pan au Chocolat, omicidi, il sogno penetra la realtà, molto Satoshi Kon ma vent'anni prima, il passato penetra nel presente, cazzi penetrano un po' ovunque, dentro e fuori dal libro nel libro, gran trip, brai tutti

[Marcos Dosantos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un despropósito de autoficción/turboficción que mezcla el proceso de escritura de una novela con su propia trama: amour fou, travestismo, violencia, París, Ibiza, Roma, Nueva York, saunas y asesinatos.

Otra gran obra de Copi que entra en mi podio junto a La internacional argentina, La guerra de las mariconas y La ciudad de las ratas.

[Izabella Kuznetsova · Rating 5 out of 5]

lo amo

[Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Queen’s Ball was a book I picked up on a trip, and finished it in less than 24 hours. I was not expecting such a short book to have such big moments. And that is how I would describe this book. Big! There is no simple emotion felt while reading. Moments are not just happy but wonderful and joyous. Moments are not just crude but absolutely vulgar and sick. And you will get whiplash from one sentence to the next as there is no slowing down and catching your breath from one big emotion to the next. This is the most surreal book I have read up til now. The writing style helps. There are no indentions separating paragraphs and no quotation marks separating dialogue. The whole thing reads in a flow and blurs lines, making it feel as if you had entered into the dream of a disturbed individual who is aware you are there. To me, I believe this book to be so ridiculous, because the author intends it to be a satire around the premise that the queer community is full of violent criminals and sexual deviants, especially considering the views on homosexuality where and when this was written. Without understanding this, The Queen’s Ball might seem like a twisted short story written by a lunatic, but with real world context it becomes a provocative piece of surrealist art made to disturb the reader into rethinking how a homophobic belief is just as fictitious as the book they are reading. I would love to be able to read more work by this author, if their other works are translated into English in the future. 4/5

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t even know how to begin to rate this one

[Liza · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh wow. what a work of art! I felt every emotion while reading this book - all beauty, horror, awe, disgust, yearn, anguish, love whiplash from one word to the next. everything was alive.

copi’s language is so visually stark - I think this is the first time I ever wanted to “look away” from a book like I might in a scary movie

[Rebecca Anderman]

i’m honestly not sure how to rate this one. probably the craziest thing i’ve ever read, a surrealist trip from beginning to end. i’m not sure if the translation made the writing somewhat stilted, or if that is the authors original style, but i both abhorred and loved it at different points. i was still enjoying it for the most part until the last three pages, which were absolutely disgusting, and some what ruined it. the entire novel is a study of the grotesque, so read at your own risk. will definitely be thinking it about it.

[Zoe Kapp · Rating 2 out of 5]

First time i read a book that was written in this manner, like a deep dive into a a personal diary. while from the jump, being hard to follow, i couldn’t stop reading. and even the style in which it was written almost i enjoyed some of my confusion. felt like art. but there was just some scenes i could barely read, graphic and uncomfortable. i was interested to see how it ended and overall was along for the ride. but the last few pages were not only revolting to read, i wanted to just close the book and walk away…any positive thoughts i had a towards a queens ball left my brain. Would not recommend.

[michal k-c · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly contemporary novel, despite being firmly rooted in its time and place. But the thing with this book is that it’s all about movement, all about transformation (both in its characterization and also in its structural development). Loved it. The historical traces of the French transgressive tradition (Sade, Rabelais) combined with the post-68 spirit

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Il capolavoro di Raul Dalmonte, in arte Copì.
Un'autobiografia fantastica e delirante, un esercizio di scrittura continua.

[Nick Iiames · Rating 3 out of 5]

i was actually loving this until the very end. the entire book is undeniably odd as is, but in a funny and interesting way. the ending, on the other hand, was just off-putting.

[Nicole McMillan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was really excellent and enthralling until the last 5 pages… Not sure how to feel….

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

very david sedaris/mark leyner-esque with the author being in the first person and told in like an autobiographical format but all the supporting characters are fabricated or people from his real life doing fictional things. however, a cocktail of emotions. surprisingly graphic ?? really sad?? really sexual ?? really fucked up?? its a lot at once. it’s very funny and clever and absurdist but gets very violent at times. i wish i knew french to read the OG but the translator incorporates the og french italian and spanish phrases throughout.

[Serina G · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book was written in an interesting stream of consciousness way that kept me gripped, and gives an insightful glimpse into what the queer community was like in the 1960s. however, the characters were so unlikeable and shallow and it had one of the worst, most nonsensical endings of any book i’ve read. i would not recommend this to any of my friends and im honestly surprised it has such high ratings

[Marianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

"...Suora Angelica agrees, she knows a clandestine surgeon who performs cock removals, how awful.... Pietro will be happier with God than with me".

read this within some hours. magnifique

[Trinity Lacayo]

0/5.
absolutely vile. i am so uncomfortable.

[Olivia Decker · Rating 4 out of 5]

wretched, nasty, chaotic, psychotic. a european party monster brimming with love(?) unsettling & entertaining.

[Craig Shalvey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really liked the first third of the book and thought it had great potential but that ending was just…

[Juan A. Ramirez · Rating 5 out of 5]

devoured this. sooo glad to have been cosmically drawn to this at a bookshop, in the same year it received its (and Copi's) first English printing. absolutely insane, fucking brilliant and essential. will be yelling about it for months and years to come.

a must if you're into Myra Breckinridge, Genet, or The Faggots and their Friends.. but really more of a spiritual cousin to the fabulous play Circle Jerk

[Sam Ryckaert · Rating 4 out of 5]

funny, propulsive, very illuminating re: a kind of queerness that feels like an alternate universe, and above all so so nasty. avoid at all costs if weak-stomached or weak-libidoed

[Mickael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a big fan of Copi's work. He has a talent to introduce the reader to an adventure and escape reality. There is wit, there is humour and there is also a strong vision of our human condition. Finally, this is a rare depiction of the "gay Paris" of the eighties. Very often bleak but a testimony of how homosexuality started slowly to gain a place in modern France.

[Ji Le · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terminé un mois avant que je ne sois né, la subversion est drôlerie de ce court roman est intacte. Malgré toutes les avancées sociales, on en viendrait presque à regretter cette époque...

[Jazmín · Rating 4 out of 5]

but why

[Kiana · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s not so much the writing or the narrative style of the book that leads me to give it such a low rating but terrifying and manic story itself. Honestly it’s an easy read even with the Italian as some of it is translated and the parts which are not can be understood very easily with a basic understanding of Italian. Copi uses his character’s stream of consciousness very uniquely and successfully accomplishes creating an entirely immersive surreal atmosphere. In truth that atmosphere and the experience of this novel as a whole was so disturbing I felt sick at times but was simultaneously impossibly quick to progress through and oddly difficult to put down. Would I still have picked up the book now that I know what it entailed, no. I truly believe that I would rather know the state of the author and the background of the writing process rather than live through the final product ever again.

[Antonio Parrilla]

No sé ni qué decir. Es una novela sobre homosexuales, como le piden que escriba, medio surrealista medio quitsch. Todo es rápido, todo son locas, a partes muy divertida, a partes muy grotesca. Las drogas están presentes de continuo; entiendo que de ahí muchas de las excentricidades (fisting por el ombligo, asesinatos, gore etc). También que la asociación mundo gay underground (y no tanto) y drogas es una realidad que se daba en cierta época en ciertas comunidades (y hoy se sigue dando).
El protagonista se llama Copi, no sabes si es Copi o no es Copi, pero está en primera persona, es un escritor peleando con el editor, vive en París etc. No para de haber sueños, digresiones, acciones surrealistas o difíciles de creer que te hacen plantearte cuál es la línea de la ficción. Muy bueno.

[Bella G · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think everybody should start buying random books by itself on the fiction shelf at Barnes and Noble purely for the fun of it because this is one of my favorite books now. I was pretty devastated to find out that this was one of the only Copi books that has been translated to English, however I’m also grateful because I got to enjoy the chaos that was The Queens Ball.

Colorful characters, bellybutton kinks, Marylin Monroe impersonators, and just overall a fun and raunchy story.

10/10 would recommend to everyone, however I don’t think I should do that (again, bellybutton sex is pretty hard to move past) so I recommend it to anyone who’s reading this review because if you’re already here then you already know what’s up.

[Natalie K · Rating 4 out of 5]

More observations than review:
A chronicle of folly. A descent into... something bottomless. I appreciate the novel, always engaging, though I'm not one for the grotesque. Copi operates within the theatrics of taboo. He highlights the absurdities, authenticities, and performances within gender and sex. He's crass and disgusting because he can be.

[Covarrubias Gemma · Rating 2 out of 5]

Un libro confuso, no sabes si es un sueño, realidad o que pasa