Eighner, author of the highly praised Travels with Lizbeth (LJ 11/15/93), takes the reader on an irreverent romp through gay society in Texas and Oklahoma. He pits Agnes, an aging, giant-sized queen, against Brother Earl, a fire-breathing fundamentalist minister who's about to go on an antihomosexual crusade. Using the naive Jim as her agent, Agnes aims to recover a lost series of compromising photographs that have held Brother Earl in check for years. In the end, Eighner's characters swish their way to victory in a most politically incorrect manner that is sure to stir readers to laughter. This book will not be to everyone's taste, though: Eighner's use of gay jargon has a way of excluding the uninitiated, and conservative readers will be put off by the subject matter. Nonetheless, this is a wickedly funny romp in which the outrageous triumphs over evil. Highly recommended for serious fiction collections.‘Andrea Caron Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, Kan. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

In 1993, Eighner's Travels with Lizbeth garnered numerous critical bouquets, praise that seems likely to be encored for this outré outing. That memoir of the author's years as a homeless struggling writer scrutinized the underbelly of Austin, Tex. The larky escapades chronicled here are set chiefly in a fanciful gay community that is labeled Austin but could as easily be Barrie's Neverland. Indeed, Eighner's wit is sprinkled about the proceedings like so much fairy dust. His repartee is scintillating (when it isn't puzzling, and sometimes it's both), and he knows precisely when and how to spring the unexpected non sequitur or the dead-on satiric barb. The story begins in the Imperial Court of the Jade Chimera, an Austin institution presided over by Madam Agnes (né Angus McKinney), a 60-ish drag queen who makes RuPaul look like a dowdy has-been. Agnes dispatches the newly arrived hunk du jour, Jim, to Osage, Okla., where he is to recover certain incriminating photos from Brother Earl, a sleazy evangelist who heads the Holy Word of God University and Technical Institute. Subsequent episodes involve Osage's one gay bar (a hilarious watering hole worthy of its own novel), a Ku Klux Klan meeting gone awry and a plethora of quirky personalities. In a stylish display of plot and character juggling, however, Eighner eventually merges his rapid-fire scene and story line switcheroos into a dizzy, dazzling whole. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Gay men have long known that there's no royalty like a real queen. Eighner's novel brings the world of queens--gay male variety--to life. Queen Agnes (aka Angus) reigns over the Imperial Court of the Jade Chimera in lovely downtown Austin, Texas--a subculture in which wealthy men live out their lives dressed as women and, besides dominating the local gay culture, exert influence over other facets of life. Agnes' court is actually a palatial home replete with multiple bedrooms, ornate baths, decks, and a pool; it is staffed by five men all named Thomas (well, one is Tomas). The plot has Agnes coercing local pretty boy Jim into helping prevent a national evangelical leader from inciting a nationwide scourge of gay bashings and killings. This scheme involves trying to expose the religious leader as the closet case he is and disrupt a Klan rally. The book sports plenty of good humor, but there is so much southern dialect that it sometimes distracts attention from the plot. --Charles Harmon