WINNER OF A 2012 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD
"Like Bond, the memoir is droll, pensive and filled with zingers teetering between funny and ferocious."--"The New York Times"

"Bond's fabulosity is matched by a trenchant wit, and V's] over-the-top stories are smartly edged with politics, sexual or otherwise."--"The New York Times"

Recently hailed as "the greatest cabaret artist of V's] generation" in "The New Yorker," Mx. Justin Vivian Bond makes a brilliant literary debut with this staggeringly candid and hilarious novella-length memoir.

With a recent diagnosis of attention deficit disorder, and news that V's first lover from childhood has been imprisoned for impersonating an undercover police officer, Bond recalls in vivid detail coming of age as a trans kid. Always haunted by the knowledge of being "different," Bond was further confused when the bully next door wanted to meet secretly. Their trysts went on for years, and made Bond acutely aware of sexual power and vulnerability. With inimitable style, Bond raises issues about LGBTQ adolescence, homophobia, parenting, and sexuality, while being utterly entertaining.

Singer, songwriter, and Tony-nominated performance artist Mx. Justin Vivian Bond is an Obie, Bessie, and Ethyl Eichelberger Award winner. As one half of the performance duo Kiki and Herb, Bond has toured the world, headlining at Carnegie Hall, the Sydney Opera House, and London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, and starring in a Tony nominated run on Broadway, "Kiki and Herb Alive on Broadway." Film credits include a role in John Cameron Mitchell's feature "Shortbus." Bond has recently released two records, "Dendrophile," and "Silver Wells."

Machine Dazzle, to my mind, [is] a true theatrical genius who has created some of the most inventive costumes and sets I have ever seen. Hilton Als Machine Dazzle is the much in-demand designer and artist behind popular cabaret, drag, and performance stars such as Taylor Mac and transgender icon Mx. Justin Vivian Bond. For the first time, his over-the-top stage creations, made for himself and others, are collected in one volume alongside stage environments, ephemera, and photos from his fascinating career. In Machine Dazzle s world, costumes are transformative objects with world-making capacity. The artist s queer maximalism encapsulates a more is better attitude to making and creating which looks to counter elitist notions that spectacle and extravagance are vapid. For him these associations are embraced as queer for their affirmation of hybridity over purity and the rejection of hierarchies of every kind, cultural and otherwise. On the occasion of a major exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design, curator Elissa Auther brings together a rich collections of essays and reminiscences from fellow performers, historians and cultural critics that consider every aspect of Machine Dazzle s rich body of work.