The Male Cross-Dresser Support Group [Paperback]

Tama Janowitz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1994

She's Pamela Trowel, a New Yorker, single and singular: holed up in her swampy basement apartment when she isn't peddling guns and ammo ads for "Hunter's World" magazine. Pamela attracts Manhattan's wrongest kind of men: the cinematographer-exhibitionist Alby; her masochistic, creepy, boss-of-all-bosses Daniel; her cross-dressing psychiatrist Martin, who conducts his pracice in a bar. Pamela is batting zero - until she meets Abdhul, a wise your urchin who follows her home from a pizza parlor, and worms his way into her heart.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Janowitz's witty and hyberbolic tale about seamy, disaffected New Yorkers poses serio-comic questions about gender and identity but is flawed by a misdirected plot.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The protagonist in the latest novel by the author of Slaves of New York (LJ 6/15/86) is a young woman named Pamela Trowel, who finds herself swept into a truly bizarre melodrama involving a fine cast of gritty New York characters. Pamela leads a single-woman-in-New York life of drudgery; she's got a lousy job, an out-of-control social life, and a love/hate relationship with her mother, who is always intruding by way of long phone calls. Then Pamela is followed home by a street urchin (who seems to be eight or nine) whom she finally allows to sleep on her couch, but only if he leaves in the morning. He doesn't leave and has soon become an important part of her life. When things at work really go wrong (a horrific comedy of errors involving bosses, boyfriends, and shrinks), Pamela and the boy flee the city, launching a new series of outrageously unlikely but hilarious events. There's a bleakness below the surface cacophony that makes laughing at the story a bit painful, yet the writing is sharp, edgy, and ultimately a joy to read. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/15/92.
-Jessica Grim, Oberlin Coll. Lib., Ohio
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Washington Square Press (February 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671871501
• ISBN-13: 978-0671871505
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,412,485 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most fun and entertaining book ever!!, August 6, 2001

By 

jeric (Seattle,WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Male Cross-Dresser Support Group (Paperback)

This book has never really got a fair shake. After SLAVES OF NEW YORK got so much acclaim, Janowitz was unfairly treated with the backlash reserved for those who become famous "too fast". A Cannibal In Manhattan was not a great work, but CROSSDRESSER most certainly was. It's extremely funny, whimsical, and daring. I've read it several times, and no other book in existence has ever made me laugh so hard. SLAVES was great, but I seem to be one of the few who feels this is even better. (I also like Kirsty MacColl, Flannery O'Connor, Scott Heim, Sam Phillips, John Waters, Todd Solondz, and French & Saunders, just in case you're wondering.)

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars PATHETIC, October 15, 1999

By 

Jeannie Park "suffering from Dwell house envy" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Male Cross-Dresser Support Group (Paperback)

I had to agree with the reader who lost interest when Pamela couldn't tell that the head she had picked up from the highway was an actual one. I found the first half fairly funny, but the road trip and everything afterwards was over the top. It wasn't just the head -- burning down her father's house? Keeping the head all the way to Maine? How stupid can a person be? That I was supposed to sympathize with Pamela's misadventures is insulting. The only bright spot was Abdhul -- he deserved better.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Seriously disappointing., February 5, 2002

By 

David J. Gannon (San Antonio, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Male Cross-Dresser Support Group (Paperback)

This book is a mess.

Janowitz's short stories are far better. Essentially what it seems she's tried to do here is "novelize" a series of short story ideas, totally without success. Janowitz specializes in off the wall characters, but there is a fine line between off the wall and simply bizarre, and Janowitz crosses it with a vengeance here.

And it's not just the characters, but the situations as well. There's a long aside about dealing with a severed head that's pointless, ridiculous and adds not a whit to the story.

It's unfortunate--the basic concept of finding a wayward child in trouble, running off to save the boy, then coming back as a man (this was a very mannish woman to begin with) might have had some interesting possibilities for humor and social insight. But the situation is so buried in detritus and the set of characters so contrived neither insight--nor much humor-emerges.

Ms. Janowitz would be well served by steering a bit more toward the mainstream and worrying a bit more about developing a story rather than a reputation.