Book Review

Welcome to the world of James St. James, a reigning queen of New York’s downtown club scene in decline. It is dark and snowing in Times Square and James is barefoot in a flimsy dressing gown, hopelessly tweaked on special K. The crying, bedraggled drag queen is not an appealing vision, but you still want to stare.

Ostensibly, Disco Bloodbath is about James’ decade-long friendship with superstar promoter and clubland killer Michael Alig. That dreadful evening in Times Square ends with heroin and a movie at Alig’s apartment, and then Alig’s confession to the murder and dismemberment of his live-in drug dealer. How could things have spiraled so far out of control, James wonders, and launches himself into a memoir of his 12 years on the New York club scene.

James quickly reveals that he never really liked Alig anyway. Cattiness caries the day, as James makes clear that Alig – credited with engineering the ‘club kid’ phenomenon of the mid-90s – was not only an untalented self-promoter, but his fashion sense was derivative of James’ own. Disco Bloodbath is a tour through club bathrooms and VIP lounges with an guide as acutely aware of all the subtleties in dress labels, posturing and social rank.

The book’s charm is in its unrelenting superficiality – James occasionally points towards the possibility of some deeper meaning or motivation, only to dismiss such dreary talk with a toss of the head and a shrug of the shoulders. He would really rather just discuss the depths of this or that drug binge or describe that party to which he wore a costume composed entirely of meat.

It all makes for a fascinating romp, and James describes the effect of drugs so well that this reader could feel the tingle in his own limbs. Where Disco Bloodbath may fail as a psychological profile of a murderer, it does make for a hell of a night out on the town.

--Stephen Siff 12/6/99  

James St. James

Simon & Schuster

286 pages