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Whores of Lost Atlantis
A funny, offbeat novel chronicles the attempt of an Off-Broadway production company to stage Julian Young's play Whores of Lost Atlantis. Reprint.
431 pages, Paperback
First published April 10, 1993
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January 8, 2020
I read Whores of Lost Atlantis back when first published in 1993. I enjoyed every single page so much I immediately read the novel a second time. Outrageously entertaining. I recently picked up the novel and savored a third reading.
For those unacquainted with Charles Busch, he strutted his stuff as one of the premier drag queens in the East Village back in the 1980s, those vibrant years when the avant-garde performance scene reached its zenith. Several theater artists and groups performing at such venues as Dixon Place and P.S. 122 went on to win commercial success - among their number, Spalding Grey, Blue Man Group and Charles Busch with his Vampire Lesbians of Sodom which enjoyed a long run of more than 2,000 shows and made Charles something of a cult figure. Oh, you diva!
Whores of Lost Atlantis is Charles Busch's semiautobiographical, fictionalized account of those early salad days when he struggled working as a part-timer- office temp, envelope stuffer, telemarketer, retail salesperson - while he and his merry, ragtag troupe performed a couple times a week at a hip garage theater/performance space/art gallery by the name of Golgotha for the sheer joy of it. One highlight: narrator Julian typed out his Whores of Lost Atlantis in a fit of artistic inspiration one morning and afternoon between answering the phone as a receptionist for a Wall Street investment firm.
Oh, yes, Charles takes on the name of Julian Young in the novel and off stage Julian is nothing if not a star-struck gossip and comic prankster. And Julian has gobs to gossip about since a gaggle of colorful, mostly gay eccentrics make up his troupe, a troupe his christens Imitation of Life Theater. Forming their number, we have Julian’s friend Joel he’s known since college, mercurial Zoe, hunk Buster, scatterbrain, overweight Camille, anorexic exhibitionist Roxie and new age Perry.
Oh, how Julian luxuriates in gossip and reflections on the East Village's hard-edged culture – examples of our leading lady in action:
"I left Zoe and Perry still wielding their eyebrow pencils and proceeded to Golgotha. If I had been apprehensive about walking through that bizarre neighborhood in full drag makeup, I needn't have worried. I was by far the most normal individual walking the streets that night."
"I share with Roxie my utter fascination with myself, but we also loved discussing other people's lives. When you get down to it, Roxie and I loved to gossip. But our whole group did too, except perhaps Joel. I don't want Joel to come off as prissy or goody-goody, but at times he seemed like a weary camp counselor shepherding an unruly group of preteens. Our favorite activity was gossiping about one another."
"We were all amazed at how swiftly our fame grew. By our fourth month at Golgotha, a long line would form at every performance. The queue would include hard-core skinheads, West Village gay men, hip straight couples who sought entertainment that was both dangerous and safe, and then there were the celebrities."
Julian adds a special sparkle to his narrative by continually alluding to and likening nearly all of life to leading ladies of the silver screen - one memorable instance is Julain's musings on his being raised by his wifty Aunt Jen who also happened to be his theatrical soulmate. "Hadn't Aunt Jen, the most important person in my life, fashioned herself from one part Lillian Gish, one part Roz Russell, one part Katharine Hepburn, and one part Lucy Ricardo? During my first thirty years, how many times had Aunt Jen saved me from the abyss during the last reel? We'd shard so many adventures, both comic and dramatic, whenever I said good-bye to her, I half-expected credits to roll."
In addition to leading his zanies through the cold realities of urban life and his many flings in the sack with a particularly provocative man, Julian and his troupe must deal with a brushing with the New York Police, a serious bit of illegality that has poor Julian huddled up in a jail cell. But this is a minor riff; the major thrust of the novel revolves around putting on the play.
In his New York Times book review, Robert Plunket complained the novel restricted itself to being all about, just that, putting on a play. As one of Mr. Plunket's teachers insisted, "Make it about life and death."
Actually, I think Robert Plunket underestimates the critical importance theater has for men and women like Julian Young. For Julian, financial success performing on stage is life in abundance and working part-time crap jobs to scrape away in poverty is death - it's a simple as that for someone whose entire spirit is entwined with the theater.
Having written a successful novel serves as icing on the theatrical cake. Pick up a copy of Whores of Lost Atlantis and turn on the spotlight.
American performer, playwright, novelist Charles Busch, born 1954
May 21, 2024
Whores of Lost Atlantis (Hardcover) by Charles Busch
Julian Young, a one-man show actor, finds himself in Boise, Idaho with a canceled show and no money. He quickly calls his Aunt Jennie - who raised him, to bail him out and get back to Manhattan.
Back home, as he works on his temp job, he decides to write, produce, and star -in drag - in a play. He recruits his friends Perry Cole, Kiko, Joel Finley, Camille Falluci, Zoe Gomez, and Guy Miller and goes to work.
The book is about the experiences and many misadventures while trying to get the play produced.
Narrated from Julian's first-person point of view, this was a book I did not need to read. Filled with name droppings, bad gay cliches, and a minimalistic plot, it was a bore. The characters are caricatures and I never cared for them.
Not recommended!
Julian Young, a one-man show actor, finds himself in Boise, Idaho with a canceled show and no money. He quickly calls his Aunt Jennie - who raised him, to bail him out and get back to Manhattan.
Back home, as he works on his temp job, he decides to write, produce, and star -in drag - in a play. He recruits his friends Perry Cole, Kiko, Joel Finley, Camille Falluci, Zoe Gomez, and Guy Miller and goes to work.
The book is about the experiences and many misadventures while trying to get the play produced.
Narrated from Julian's first-person point of view, this was a book I did not need to read. Filled with name droppings, bad gay cliches, and a minimalistic plot, it was a bore. The characters are caricatures and I never cared for them.
Not recommended!
December 9, 2018
A slow read for me. Maybe it's because I'm straight I glossed over all the details about this actress or that character he felt he could define himself with. I really just hated Julian. Not because he's gay; I like gay people. He was just so self absorbed and selfish and manipulative and I felt, would really do absolutely anything if it meant furthering his own goals and pursuits. It really rubbed me the wrong way. I liked it more towards the end with the whole drama unfolding but by the end of the book, honest answer, I was just glad it was over and I could mark it as read.
March 26, 2023
This was one of the first gay fiction books I read once I came out. Busch is both funny and poignant. This book holds a special place in my heart and although I know it is fiction, I can't help but think that it is really a theater history about the development of the Vampire Lesbians of Sodom. If you don't know about this, you need to study your gay/theatre history!
November 21, 2021
This novel is really a fictionalized account of a year in the life of Charles Busch, a "performance artist" off-Broadway. He and his cast start off waaaay off.
It is a sometimes funny, and also sometimes melancholy story. However, it also has a tendency to drag in spots.
It is a sometimes funny, and also sometimes melancholy story. However, it also has a tendency to drag in spots.
April 24, 2019
If you know Charles Busch and his work, then you will enjoy this fictionalized account of his earlier stage work. Ridiculous, funny, self absorbed, arch, horny, and touching.
October 3, 2023
I could not love this book any more than I do.
June 12, 2015
Picked up this book at a library sale forever ago. Below the author's name it says "Author of Vampire Lesbians of Sodom" which is a play that I subsequently got to see this past November at the Jobsite theater in Tampa. Both titles are pretty provocative, and both stories prominently feature the adventures of drag queens and queer folk of various stripes. If you've seen the play it should give you a bit of an idea of the sense of humor you'll find in this story. And if you've read this book it should give you an idea of what kind of play Vampire Lesbians is. However, if you haven't seen either than that comparison is useless to you, so let's start over.
This is the story of a young girly boy trying to make his way in the big city. Find purpose via the arts and love, via... however he can. If you're a CIS individual reading this book it'll give you a glimpse into a world that you can never truly understand, and hopefully it'll help you be a little more sympathetic towards those who live and struggle in that world. If you belong somewhere on the lgbtqia increasingly long acronym that seems to get a little longer every year, then this story will speak to a part of you which is pretty important to your identity. It's interesting to note that even the villains in this story are not really straight. It's a strange world and no one is completely normal. And I think that's a good lesson to take from the story.
This book is part mystery, part farce, part autobiography, and all heart. Check it out if you believe that love comes in many shapes and sizes and that it is a many splendored thing. I liked the story and hopefully you will too.
This is the story of a young girly boy trying to make his way in the big city. Find purpose via the arts and love, via... however he can. If you're a CIS individual reading this book it'll give you a glimpse into a world that you can never truly understand, and hopefully it'll help you be a little more sympathetic towards those who live and struggle in that world. If you belong somewhere on the lgbtqia increasingly long acronym that seems to get a little longer every year, then this story will speak to a part of you which is pretty important to your identity. It's interesting to note that even the villains in this story are not really straight. It's a strange world and no one is completely normal. And I think that's a good lesson to take from the story.
This book is part mystery, part farce, part autobiography, and all heart. Check it out if you believe that love comes in many shapes and sizes and that it is a many splendored thing. I liked the story and hopefully you will too.
May 4, 2017
This semi-autobiographical account of Charles Busch's early years in New York City prior to becoming famous is so funny, you'll cry.
It's really a long-gone era: New York City before off-off-Broadway became commercialized. Busch is so far outside the "gay community" that it might as well not exist. And the economy is doing so well that Busch, a temp worker, can spend most of his days typing plays and making photocopies of them without anyone noticing.
Okay, this is fiction. But only just. The cast of characters include an evil Japanese performance artist (the scene in which she stands upside down, naked, while eggs are cracked open on -- well, just read it, it'll have you in stitches), an over-sensitive Latino bodybuilder with a dong the size of the Brooklyn Bridge, two black Caribbean costume designers with a fetish for sewing, and Busch: A drag queen (although not yet a good one), a singer (he thinks), an actor (maybe), and writer (that's yet to be proven) who wants desperately to create "new" and "original" plays that will star himself and launch him to stardom.
Quite frankly, Whores of Lost Atlantis is better (I think) than nearly all of Busch's plays or films. The characterization is deep and well-sketched, and the weaving (drunkard?) plot contains lovely sidelights, twists, and vignettes that never make it unpredictable. I was completely drawn into the atmophere of late-1980s New York City that Busch inhabited. And there's a thrilling ending that just has to be read.
It's really a long-gone era: New York City before off-off-Broadway became commercialized. Busch is so far outside the "gay community" that it might as well not exist. And the economy is doing so well that Busch, a temp worker, can spend most of his days typing plays and making photocopies of them without anyone noticing.
Okay, this is fiction. But only just. The cast of characters include an evil Japanese performance artist (the scene in which she stands upside down, naked, while eggs are cracked open on -- well, just read it, it'll have you in stitches), an over-sensitive Latino bodybuilder with a dong the size of the Brooklyn Bridge, two black Caribbean costume designers with a fetish for sewing, and Busch: A drag queen (although not yet a good one), a singer (he thinks), an actor (maybe), and writer (that's yet to be proven) who wants desperately to create "new" and "original" plays that will star himself and launch him to stardom.
Quite frankly, Whores of Lost Atlantis is better (I think) than nearly all of Busch's plays or films. The characterization is deep and well-sketched, and the weaving (drunkard?) plot contains lovely sidelights, twists, and vignettes that never make it unpredictable. I was completely drawn into the atmophere of late-1980s New York City that Busch inhabited. And there's a thrilling ending that just has to be read.
Read
June 16, 2008Charles Busch's barely fictionalized--as I understand it--account of his genesis and rise as a downtown theater staple.
While avoiding being a love letter to its period, it is a good "day in the life" of the final days of pre-Giuliani New York. The East Village was dangerous; gay people cared about AIDS; pay phones existed; art wasn't the fully blown corporate mess it is now.
Busch's ego itself becomes a sort of supporting character, and I was really interested to get to know a tremendously self indorsement-obsessed individual through the character himself--a character very self-conscious of this trait of his.
I did grow a little tired of Busch's hyperbolic verbage ("we subwayed down to Christopher Street"). But then, the thesis of the work is of a character who is living in a Golden Era MGM picture, so it was definitely appropriate; it just became a little tedious by page 200.
It's a good read for those with ambition but without means: the m.o. is to "just do it." Like an MGM film he loves, Busch crafts a solid arc with a definite beginning, middle, end, and he stays in constant control. Consistently enjoyable, always readable.
The main question I took from the book--and am still working on!--is, could someone do today what he did then? Or is a LiveNation-promoted, Viacom-funded, completely safe work the only thing possible to produce in the theme park remains of New York?
While avoiding being a love letter to its period, it is a good "day in the life" of the final days of pre-Giuliani New York. The East Village was dangerous; gay people cared about AIDS; pay phones existed; art wasn't the fully blown corporate mess it is now.
Busch's ego itself becomes a sort of supporting character, and I was really interested to get to know a tremendously self indorsement-obsessed individual through the character himself--a character very self-conscious of this trait of his.
I did grow a little tired of Busch's hyperbolic verbage ("we subwayed down to Christopher Street"). But then, the thesis of the work is of a character who is living in a Golden Era MGM picture, so it was definitely appropriate; it just became a little tedious by page 200.
It's a good read for those with ambition but without means: the m.o. is to "just do it." Like an MGM film he loves, Busch crafts a solid arc with a definite beginning, middle, end, and he stays in constant control. Consistently enjoyable, always readable.
The main question I took from the book--and am still working on!--is, could someone do today what he did then? Or is a LiveNation-promoted, Viacom-funded, completely safe work the only thing possible to produce in the theme park remains of New York?
October 6, 2013
It's a shame that Charles Busch, playwright and extraordinary channeler of glamorous Hollywood divas that never were, only wrote a single novel. Whores of Lost Atlantis is not even so much a work of fiction as a thinly-disguised autobiography of how Busch assembled the group of actors and improv artists who came to form Theatre in Limbo in the nineteen-eighties, and with Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, became a wild Off-Off-Broadway success.
On stage, Busch may be larger than life, but within the pages of his sole attempt at fiction, he's self-effacing, modest, and nothing at all like the outlandish divas he writes for himself. Though the (slightly) fictionalized version of the truth employs a (slightly) silly crime caper subplot to add some oomph to the proceedings, it's the least-convincing aspect of Busch's writing. What emerges is a sweet-natured tribute to a vanished era when any female impersonator with drive and moxie could become a downtown cult sensation.
On stage, Busch may be larger than life, but within the pages of his sole attempt at fiction, he's self-effacing, modest, and nothing at all like the outlandish divas he writes for himself. Though the (slightly) fictionalized version of the truth employs a (slightly) silly crime caper subplot to add some oomph to the proceedings, it's the least-convincing aspect of Busch's writing. What emerges is a sweet-natured tribute to a vanished era when any female impersonator with drive and moxie could become a downtown cult sensation.
March 1, 2011
This behind the scenes look at new york underground camp theatre is a fun romp; the only drawback is the side characters aren't developed much beyond their initial introductions... what a shame as they are certainly a fascinating bunch of eccentrics and misfits. But after all, is it not the very nature of a diva to steal every scene? Busch is not only a diva but a fountain of wit and camp irony, which the book overflows with. Terrific fun.
January 26, 2009
First person account of a gay actor/playwright/performance artist in the 80s. Good piece of fluff. Creates some interesting characters. I think it's supposed to be funnier than it really is. A little more ridiculous/unbelievable than It really has to be. Definitely a page-turner; never boring. Follows the troupe from rags to (eventual) riches, off-Broadway.
July 20, 2015
A hilarious semi-autobiographical book that had me reading every free minute I had this was a wonderful read. Feel free to read my full review on my site www.girlinthetinyhat.blogspot.com. A worthy read this book.
March 21, 2009
This book is amazing! I just started it last night and I'm really excited. But I really love anything gritty from New York pre 1989. And gay theatre books are always good.
July 29, 2011
If you enjoy charles Busch and his plays and his personalit, you will enjoy this. It is a fictional comic romp loosely based on his theater company of misfits in the Village in the 80's.
February 27, 2013
Fun, campy & queeny
August 3, 2013
This was by far the best book I have ever read. Awesome!
August 6, 2014
Uninspired silliness. I like Charles Busch's plays, and his cabaret act is first rate. But a novelist he's not. The humor is forced here, and the writing just isn't very good.
August 10, 2016
amazing
August 2, 2015
Didn't finish it.
February 24, 2016
Entertaining, semi-autobiographical fluff from our favorite drag actor/playwright.
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