String of Pearls: Stories About Cross-Dressing (Paperback)

by Paul Allatson (Author), Catherine Lazaroo (Author), John A. Scott (Author), Dorothy Porter (Author), Chad Taylor (Author), Fiona McGregor (Author), Tony Ayres (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Boys will be girls and girls will be boys. String of Pearls is a collection of provocative, sexy stories about cross-dressing amassed by Australian writer and filmmaker Tony Ayres. Often the tales are about gender confusion, undermining the rigid boundaries by which sexuality is defined. They also touch upon themes of sexual ambiguity, clothing as fetish and ritual, and disguise as a vehicle for unveiling hidden truth.

Product Details

• Paperback: 259 pages
• Publisher: Allen & Unwin (October 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1863739149
• ISBN-13: 978-1863739146
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,452,984 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Edited Anthology of Stories, August 25, 2008

By	BYF "Backyard Flix" (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

From back cover:

"A girl draws a moustache on her lover's upper lip.
A boy dresses as his mother for the police.
A gathering of women don butcher's apron
Lady Caroline Lamb dresses as a pageboy for Lord Byron
Prime Minister Alfred Deakin is given a lovely purple dress
A traveller from the Caribbean makes an ill-fated assignation.

'String of Pearls' is a designer collection, bringing together some of our finest established authors and the boldest new writers, to write about cross-dressing and push against the rigid boundaries by which we fence our desires. The stories are both provocative and subtle, skirting around sexual ambiguities, clothing as fetish, uniform as ritual and disguise as a vehicle for unveiling hidden truths."

Stories include:

* Her Aviary (Paul Allatson)
* Instructions to my seamstress (Catherine Lazaroo)
* Silhouette (Gillian Mears)
* The man from the Caribbean (William Yang)
* Butchers aprons (Alan Valentine)
* Crystal (Nick Enright)
* Tsunami (Fiona McGregor)
* In the forest of the eternals (Louis Nowra)
* Venice - the aria (Dorothy Porter)
* Tottering towards Darlinghurst (Gary Dunne)
* Elegy (John A. Scott)
* My cock lives in hell (Tony Ayres)
* The Stand-In (Belinda Chayko)
* Supercollider (Chad Taylor)

7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Missing Some Pearls, January 15, 2000

By	Domo (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

Unforunately this book doesn't live up to it's promises. The stories about cross dressing never focus on why the characters cross dress or even describe the world of drag. Drag is becoming more popular, clubs are everywhere and the potential for a book of stories about these individuals and places is there. This is what I had hoped I would find in String of Pearls. Half of the stories I couldn't even finish and the other half I wish I hadn't.