HOW JOSEPH CASSARA’S NEW BOOK EXPANDS ON THE WORLD OF PARIS IS BURNING

There is a moment early in Joseph Cassara’s debut novel in which Angel, a 17-year-old trans girl from the Bronx, sneaks away to a boutique in Manhattan’s East Village and, for the first time, tries on a dress in public: “When she finally stared at herself in the mirror, she raised her arms to the side like she was about to launch into flight. Head back, mouth open, she closed her eyes and laughed. ‘Free,’ she thought, ‘totally free.’” It’s this kind of freedom—transformative, empowering, often dangerous—that informs much of The House of Impossible Beauties, and it’s a state of mind that flows directly from its source material.