Fridae

Do you scan and devour the local gossip columns just to keep yourself updated on who's spotted at the latest parties about town?

Do you make it a point to grace the hippest happenings in your most devastating outfit week after week?

Are you an unrepentant scene queen who will stop at nothing to claim your Warholian fifteen minutes of fame?

Well honey, if you answer "yes!," "yes!" and "yes!" to all the above questions, then Party Monster is a must-read for you!

Previously titled Disco Bloodbath, Party Monster is written by cross-dressing former club kid James St James who was once dubbed a "celebutante" by Newsweek magazine and the self-proclaimed "best friend" of ultra-hip New York gay party promoter turned murderer Michael Alig.

Set in the late 90s, Party Monster is a surrealistic murder story whose main plot focuses on the true-to-life events leading to Alig's gruesome murder of drug dealer and fellow club kid Angel Melendez who was (avert your eyes gentle reader) bludgeoned by a hammer, injected with Drano, dismembered and then tossed into the river.

Epitomizing the literary device known as the unreliable narrator, James St James chronicles the rise and fall of Michael Alig, the "King of Club Kids," through a Ketamine induced haze and offers glimpses into the hedonistic world of the clubbing circuit, after-hours parties, club-and-drugs subculture and claws-baring social rituals of the clubbing elite.

The sensationalistic story of Alig's rise to the top and his murder of Angel notwithstanding, the real draw of Party Monster belongs to the limelight stealing and drug-soaked characters the likes of Clara the Carefree Chicken, Jennytalia, Drag Terrorist Bella Bolski, Freeze, middle-aged lesbian turned drug-dealer supremo Mavis, and of course, James St James himself.

And as if Alig's court of admirers and hanger-ons are not engrossing enough, St James fills his novel with wicked descriptions of Alig's legendary parties featuring "performances" from Ernie the Pee-Drinker, Lady Hennessy Brown who "promised to set her pussy on fire and lactate on the audience" and Ida Slapter, white trash trannie capable of pulling out a string of blinking Christmas bulbs out of his (or her) anus.

The only drawback to Party Monster is St James' over-generous use of all-caps typeface and italics, which coupled with his "I'm-such-a-Diva-bow-before-me" persona, can create (at inappropriate moments) a strident narrative tone that tests even the most sanguine of gay readers.

Having said that, Party Monster, with its unflinching insights into the "Club Kids" phenomenon, unrepentant personality shredding and flamboyant tales of what it takes to be "fabulous," does remain one of the most savagely funny murder stories any reader will ever read.

(Note: Party Monster has been made into a 1999 documentary by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato who subsequently went on to make a movie similarly titled Party Monster starring former child has-been and Home Alone whiner Macaulay Culkin in the role of Michael Alig and Seth Green as James St James.)