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5.0 out of 5 stars
A must-read for Ed Wood afficianados., Jun 25 2003
The most amazing thing about "Killer in Drag" is that it plays out more-or-less exactly like one of EDW2's movies. The action moves from point-to-point without logic or consistency, and when it all ends rather abruptly, you're not sure what, if anything, you've just witnessed. He probably could've made big bucks turning out Hollywood blockbusters in the '90s.Glenda is an assassin for "The Syndicate". The Syndicate is apparently an equal-opportunity employer, with a quota for exactly one transvestite (TV) assassin, as she is later stalked by her (much inferior) replacement. Anyway, Glenda's trying to get out of The Syndicate (which no one ever does, of course) by--get this--having a sex-change operation. In other words, Glen, whose specialty is portraying a woman very convincingly, is going to hide from his criminal employers by actually becoming a woman. In a shocking and completely unexplained twist, Glen is spared from the homosexual prostituting he needs to get the money for the sex change by murder of his would-be patron. So he goes on the lam, stopping every few miles to change clothes. He finally decides to hide from the law by--yes, you guessed it--buying a carnival. (If you actually did guess that, you may have a lucrative career in writing ahead of you.) In other words, this book is chock full of the surreal antics and idiomatic use of language that marks EDW2's film work. It probably didn't take much longer to write than it does to read and at this point '65, he was well on his way to alcohol-induced dementia. (I would guess the bulk of the book is descriptions about people drinking, mixing drinks, wanting a drink, etc.) The tell-tale sign is in the delirious description of his alter ego "Shirlee", described unpleasantly as an ugly old drunken TV. "Shirlee" only adds a certain poignancy to the whole proceedings, with its raw energy and its echos and shadows of talent. The author went off the rails somewhere in life, and there's a real tragedy in not having him around to reflect on it all. Of course, that's long spilt milk, and it must be admitted that the man left an enduring legacy. A must-read for Ed Wood afficianados.
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