Dirty White Boy: Tales of Soho
by Clayton Littlewood
Cleis Press. 350 pages, $14.95 (paper)
CLAYTON LITTLEWOOD and his partner Jorge owned an outlet of the now defunct designer clothing chain, Dirty White Boy, in the heart of London’s gay mecca, Old Compton Street in Soho. Sitting in the window of his store, Littlewood would blog on MySpace about the low-life characters who hung out in his vibrant neighborhood, such as Sue the madam, who ran the brothel upstairs; Angela, a six-foot-five post-op transsexual and a direct descendant of Sally Bowles; and Pam the Fag Lady, who collected cigarette butts and hid her stash under the wheel of a car.
These blogs have now been reworked by Littlewood into a book. Dirty White Boy is a collection of vignettes of modern Soho reminiscent of Armistead Maupin’s “Tales of the City” series, and even includes a glossary for American readers. Pimps, prostitutes, rent boys, drunks, and crackheads figure in the resulting docudrama. The dandified artist Sebastian Horsley, the drag queen legend Holly Woodlawn, talk-show host Graham Norton, and supermodel Janice Dickinson (strung out on drugs) make cameo appearances. In exposing the seedy underbelly of Soho, Littlewood finds “something beautiful amongst the squalor” and reveals the sadness behind the glitter. The ghosts of a Soho past hover over the book: Quentin Crisp in The Black Cat making a single cup of tea last for hours while dishing about the “trade” in Dean Street. Francis Bacon propping up the bar at the Colony Room. Charlie Chaplin dining in the Italian restaurant that once stood on the same spot as Dirty White Boy.
The author is concerned with Soho’s future as well as its past. Littlewood’s chronicle covers a period of transition in Soho’s history, as small businesses were forced to close due to rising rents and the brothels in Peter Street were knocked down. Littlewood fears that the once bohemian Soho neighborhood is being turned into another Covent Garden, touristy and antiseptic. Soho is a place where the past and the present coexist uneasily. In one memorable scene, Littlewood is drinking in Dean Street with the Indian artist Raqib Shaw when they witness Kate Moss and Pete Doherty being mobbed by photographers as they leave the Colony Room. Shaw, a man born out of his time, is saddened by “the fickleness of celebrity” and “how it can overshadow art.”
Dirty White Boy purports to be a memoir, but the persona of Leslie, with his nasal drawl and preening mannerisms, seems a fictionalized amalgam of Quentin Crisp and the late comic actor Kenneth Williams (known for “his nostrils flaring open like windsocks”). David Benson, the celebrated Williams impersonator, has performed the role of Leslie on BBC Radio and looks set to play the waspish queen in the forthcoming play in London’s West End theatre district based on Littlewood’s book.
_________________________________________________________________
Justin Gowers, a writer based in London, has written for The Guardian, The Independent and Gay Times.
