Product Description

Some time ago, while at a New York flea market, inveterate collectors Michel Hurst and Robert Swope discovered a large body of snapshots: album after aged album of well-preserved images, taken roughly between the mid-50s and mid-60s, depicting a group of cross-dressers united around a place called Casa Susanna, a rather large and charmingly banal Victorian-style house in small-town New Jersey. The inhabitants, visitors, guests, and hosts used it as a weekend headquarters for a regular "girl's life." Someone-probably "Susanna" or the matriarch-nailed a wonder board on a tree proclaiming it "Casa Susanna," and thus a Queendom was born. Through these wonderfully intimate shots-perhaps never intended to see the light of day outside the sanctum of the "house"-Susanna and her gorgeous friends styled era-specific fashion shows and dress-up Christmas and tea parties. As gloriously primped as these documentary snaps are, it is in the more private and intimate life at Casa Susanna, where the girls sweep the front porch, cook, knit, play Scrabble, relax at the nearby lake and, of course, dress for the occasion, that the stunning insight to a very private club becomes nothing less than brilliant and awe inspiring in its pre-glam, pre-drag-pose ordinariness and nascent preening and posturing in new identities. It is not glamour for the stage but for each other, like other women who dress up to spend time with friends, flaunting their own sense of style. There is an evident pleasure of being here, at Casa Susanna, that is a liberation, a simplification of the conflicts inherent in a double life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #638389 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 156 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The gatherings depicted within these pages initially appear to be the bridge parties of slightly bored, if typical, mid-century housewives; on closer inspection, it becomes apparent that these women-drinking, playing scrabble, smoking, knitting and mugging for the camera-are actually atypical mid-century men. The photos, presented sans accompanying text, are some of the 400 similar images Swope found at a New York flea market. Comprised of candid snapshots and posed portraits taken during the '50s and '60s at an upstate New York Victorian home dubbed "Casa Susanna" by its cross-dressing frequenters, the book includes photos of the ladies having tea, relaxing in the backyard and preening for pageants and holiday parties. As a social document, this collection of photos provides readers with direct access to the ladies as they seize upon and amplify their era's stereotypes of the womanly ideal. Equally intriguing as a record of atomic-age housewares, conservative housewife duds and the blushing interiors of a bygone era, the photos richly communicate the sense of solidarity among this cloistered group in pre-sexual revolution America.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

A historical first
Fascinating. By trade, I'm a professional clinical psychologist, and I was alerted to Casa Susanna by the NY Times. It's unexpectedly and refeshingly uplifting -- It is NOT at an expose about a seedy subculture of mifit crossdressers. Rather, Casa Susanna was a modest and friendly country getaway for men in the 1950s and 60s who needed a weekend or two crossing the gender line and then return to their professional lives. The photos are understandably snapshot and Polaroid quality, and I would have liked more narrative from the actual guest-participants. Recommended reading for any crossdresser and transgender group.

The better half
The editors of this beautiful book found at a NYC flea market a giant collection of photos of male crossdressers relaxing and being themselves at an upstate vacation home, and wisely decided to publish the best of the photos with as little comment or context as possible; the result is revelatory. In this astonishing collection of faded Polaroids the subjects are sometimes seen posing for the camera (as for their yearly Christmas cards, for example), but are mostly seen chatting, knitting, relaxing, and having fun. The sense of naturalness--of being seen for who they are--pervades the photographs, which should be as fascinating for anyone interested in the aesthetic of the period as much as for its anthropological aspects.

Lovely book
This is a fantastic picture book that will touch your heart. A perfect gift for anyone who are into retro esthetics.