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(Drag) Queen of Scots
(Drag) Queen of Scots
Oct 11, 2024 2:29 PM

Author:Lawrence Chaney

(Drag) Queen of Scots

'It's no mystery or secret how much I enjoy Lawrence Chaney.' - RuPaul

'Tackles everything from gender identity, the thrill of a wig and why Scottish talent is often overlooked.' - i News

Lawrence Chaney has wowed audiences across the globe as the winner of RuPaul's Drag Race UK. In Lawrence (Drag) Queen of Scots, Lawrence shares heartfelt and candid moments from their past. From being bullied as a child to what it's like to date as a drag queen, they give us an insight to their journey towards acceptance and better mental health.

The loch ness legend themself takes us through the struggles faced to get to where they are now. From their childhood, growing up as a queer kid in Glasgow, feeling self-conscious and turning to humour to avoid being bullied, Lawrence shares their painfully relatable coming out story, and how finding drag was a vehicle towards confidence and self-love.

__________

'Gorgeous, hugely talented, funny, charismatic, adorable, Chaney is a goddess and brings us joy.' - Lorraine

'Lawrence shares some of [their] most intricate and personal stories...such as concocting a drag name, mental health and dating.' - Gay Times

'Lawrence Chaney is the funniest queen by a country mile. She has delivered the laughs a locked down nation needed in abundance. But there's much more to Chaney than her quick wit. Her vulnerability is also part of her natural gift.' - Vogue

Reviews

It's no mystery or secret how much I enjoy Lawrence Chaney.

—— RuPaul

Lawrence Chaney is queen of the one-liner and the funniest queen by a country mile. She has delivered the laughs a locked down nation needed in abundance. But there's much more to Chaney than her quick wit. Her vulnerability is also part of her natural gift.

—— Vogue

Gorgeous, hugely talented, funny, charismatic, adorable, Chaney is a goddess and brings us joy.

—— Lorraine Kelly

If you were obsessed with Lawrence when they were competing on Drag Race (and who wasn't?), you'll want to get yourself a copy asap

—— Cosmopolitan

Hilarious... gives a fresh perspective on the autobiographical drag queen format. Lawrence shares some of her most intricate and personal stories, as well as her extremely professional opinion on various subjects such as concocting a drag name, mental health and dating.

—— Gay Times

Our fabulous queen has arrived. Go Lawrence!

—— Douglas Scott, author of Shuggie Bain

A candid look back at Lawrence's journey so far - their difficult childhood, marred by bullying; their painfully relatable coming out story; their journey towards better mental health. It's not all serious - there are hilarious, NSFW sex stories, insights into the Drag Race UK werk room, and a practical guide on how to become - as the title suggests - a drag superstar.

—— Pink News

Tackles everything from gender identity, the thrill of a wig and why Scottish talent is often overlooked.

—— i News

Fantastic... feisty, opinionated and honest.

—— Daily Record

Full of one-liners and charm, this cheery memoir comes complete with valuable life lessons and tricks of the trade. Absolutely fabulous fun.

—— Best Magazine

With sky-high wigs and pin-sharp wit, Lawrence is one of the UK's most loved drag acts. Here the season two winner of RuPaul's Drag Race UK explains how humour is a lifesaver.

—— Daily Express

With laugh-out-loud passages of comedy and stylish illustrations... [this] is the story of how he [Cocker] made himself into who he is, his acquisition of a personal style and outlook... Hopefully we will not have to hang around long before his next trip to the loft.

—— Financial Times

Like little madeleines, each relic is offered up to the reader in the intimate, confiding voice familiar from Cocker's lyrics.

—— Sunday Times, *Summer Reads of 2022*

Good Pop, Bad Pop is a joy.

—— Choice

Good Pop, Bad Pop shows how he mapped out Pulp's path to glory at jumble sales and sparsely attended 1980s gigs... A winning formula on the page.

—— Uncut, *Book of the Year*

Extremely funny and almost over-stuffed with insights about the state of pop and the nature of creativity.

—— Daily Telegraph, *Books of the Year*

An entertaining quasi-memoir based on decluttering his loft.

—— Financial Times, *Books of the Year*

[A] nostalgic, playful, and beautifully designed book.

—— Daily Mail, *Christmas Gift Guide 2022*

A vibrant showcase of sharp writing, Abdurraqib's A Little Devil in America attests that Black performance at its root is not simply an outward show of talent but also a means of survival. Read carefully. Abdurraqib's book is a challenge not to accept the usual explanations for the performances we witness.

—— BookPage

Abdurraqib's great strength is his ability to present broad, canny observations through the lens of his personal experience, and his intimate exploration of what these specific moments meant to him as a Black Muslim coming of age in the US is what lingers long after you've finished the book

—— Buzzfeed

Abdurraqib has written a profound reflection on how Black performance is woven into the fabric of American culture... A Little Devil in America is a joyous ode to Black performance throughout history.

—— PureWow

Throughout, Abdurraqib writes with urgency as he highlights what these performances mean, how they connect to his own feelings on grief, love and life,
and where they fit into American history
.

—— TIME Magazine

From Josephine Baker to Soul Train to 'Sixteen Ways of Looking at Blackface,' Abdurraqib takes us on a wild ride through the history of Black performances, artists who crushed boundaries and carved out spaces for vigorous forms of African American expression. His is an intimate, conspiratorial voice, musically inflected, blending scholarship with anecdote, a 'waltz in a circular chamber of your homies and not-homies, shouting chants of excitement.'

—— Oprah Magazine

Abdurraqib breathes new life into performers of significance in his life, both legendary and unsung

—— A.V. Club

Abdurraqib is one of our finest writers period. A brilliant poet, essayist and cultural critic, he handles nostalgia, pop culture, Blackness and friendship in ways few writers can. Here, he examines Black America's changing views of Whitney Houston, the death of Michael Jackson, the spiritual properties of dancing, Afrofuturism and more. The early chapter "Sixteen Ways of Looking at Blackface" is a deeply humane piece of virtuoso writing. Longer dispatches are broken up by lyric, stream-of-consciousness pieces that refresh the soul and remind readers that there's little Abdurraqib can't do

—— Aarik Danielsen , Columbia Star Tribune

In his new collection of essays, A Little Devil in America, the poet and critic Hanif Abdurraqib surveys this sprawl of expression. Here he charges himself with quite an ambitious task, pinning down and contextualizing the historic scale of such a globally significant cultural output, and it is one that would appear to call for an equally ambitious scope... Contemplations of legendary voices, sleights of hand, and charismatic choreographies are in dialogue with his own stories of grief, love, faith, and the search for freedom within the confinements of borders and a body...Abdurraqib expands the conception of "performance" to include the whole realm of behavior and culture...Playfulness, seduction, artistry, and reinvention: Abdurraqib wants us to know that these devilish gestures have their place, too, among the saints that line the corridors in this tiresome, captivating, and essential struggle

—— The Nation

In A Little Devil in America, Abdurraqib walks readers through Black archives of dance, film, social struggle, and song as though these "intimate histories" of performance (as Saidiya Hartman calls them) could free us from anything that misses the beat. For this collection of essays, he does the work of a DJ: he digs through the crates, selects the most appropriately unexpected songs/topics/subjects, builds a collage between cuts and scratches, and presents his set. His books are soundscapes in print, and I was somehow listening to each sentence as if it were a breakbeat of personal narrative and socio-historical commentary...Hanif is one of the most exciting writers of his generation

—— Los Angeles Review of Books

Abdurraqib, known for his playful, intelligent sense of humor on Twitter, highlights amazing performances that shed light on societal constructions and moments of sheer joy his book about Black culture in America. Writing about joy is challenging; falling back on cliche is a constant temptation that Abdurraqib avoids in this insightful tome

—— Forbes

That sense of limitlessness wraps itself around every essay in Abdurraqib's newest book, A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance. In it, he writes about Black performance in America-from Great Depression-era dance marathons to the enduring cool of Don Cornelius to the art of Mike Tyson entering a boxing ring-with both great reverence and rigorous analysis. The book, in the way Abdurraqib's work so often does, erects monuments to our should-be legends and our unignorable icons alike, and paints an expansive, deeply felt portrait of the history of Black artistry

—— Leah Johnson , Electric Literature

This deft consideration of seemingly irreconcilable values, between the personal and private dimensions of performance, can be found throughout the essays in A Little Devil in America...Abdurraqib sees performance as a site of radical questioning, experimentation, and dream-making. This book is not a work of theory. It is sensual. We watch him watching his idols and we watch him dancing along with them, sometimes clumsily. If Brooks's goal is to make a case for performers' intellectualism, Abdurraqib's is to help us understand how they teach us to live richer, more embodied lives

—— Danielle A. Jackson , Vulture

Engrossing and moving ... A new, poetic take on essays that, I think, changes the game in many ways.

—— Roger Robinson , New Statesman Books of the Year

Astonishing, impressive ... the connections he makes point to the enduring influence of Black art ... a book as bold as it is essential

—— TIME Book of the Year

I absolutely love this book. It's incredible and so well written. I keep trying to find fault but so far no joy - It's so good

—— Matt Charman, writer Bridge of Spies (dir Stephen Spielberg); Black Work (ITV)

[John Yorke's] writing book is arguably possibly almost as good as mine, all right it's loads better shut up

—— David Quantick, Author of HOW TO WRITE EVERYTHING

Probably, in the hackneyed phrase, "the last book on screenwriting you'll ever need." He is very good at debunking the claims of some screenwriting gurus, all of whom are busy trying to sell you their own particular brand of snake oil. It's truly excellent

—— Tim Adler , Daily Telegraph

Of all the books I've read about story construction and the art of fiction, this one is the most comprehensive and concise

—— John Collee, writer on 'Master And Commander', 'Happy Feet', 'Creation', 'Walking With Dinosaurs'
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