From his King’s Cross flat, David Hodge – artist, performer, and “queen of Soho” – shares his story from childhood, the road to his drag persona and career as Dusty O, and life in London through the AIDS crisis to the present day in memoir, The Boy Who Sat By The Window.
Hodge vividly portrays his narrative as a young boy, bullied and alienated by peers and teachers, to adolescence and finding performing and catharsis and in turn, his authentic self. Never forgetting his roots or those who supported him along the way, Hodge brilliantly and gracefully articulates an illustrious life through the decadence and glamour of the West End and the challenges of late 20th-century British life, alcohol addiction, and the intensities of being in the public eye, to a new beginning, happily married as a painter.
Hodge’s perspective and skilful writing weave in moving passages detailing his work at the London Lighthouse and loss of loved ones during the worst years of the AIDS epidemic, through to vibrant friendships with some of the most colourful figures in global popular culture and his eye for Vivienne Westwood’s designs.
The Boy Who Sat By The Window is a modest memoir of a celebrated creative, and a compelling account of Hodge’s own difficulties amidst the glittery hedonism of the West End in the 1980s and 1990s; a must for anyone familiar with the capital’s club and drag history.
The Boy Who Sat By The Window – The Story Of The Queen Of Soho, David Hodge (Mardle)
Price: £12.99. Info: here
words CHLOË EDWARDS
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