We can all be flamboyant, even if we don’t realise it. The word connotes an exuberance of thought and expression, of creativity and performance. Yet historically the term has been reserved for the over-the-top and the outré, invoked at times to criticise, or to sneer.
Here, Jack Parlett offers up an indispensable, paradigm-shifting exploration of flamboyance that weaves cultural criticism and personal memoir. Tracking its history and social significance, from the flaming origins of the word, through fashion, art and music, to protest movements and beyond, Parlett reframes a concept that any of us can and should harness more regularly. We follow Parlett on his own journey towards flamboyance, from queer, closeted teenager watching Pop Idol in Milton Keynes, through the alcoholism of his twenties, to finding flamboyance
in sobriety.
Drawing from the lives of those who embody it, from William Morris to James Baldwin and Amy Winehouse, Chappell Roan and JW Anderson, Parlett shows how we break free from cultural expectations that don’t serve us and live a brighter, happier, more audaciously fulfilling life.
Born in Milton Keynes, in 1992, Jack Parlett is a writer, poet and scholar. He is the author of The Poetics of Cruising: Queer Visual Culture from Whitman to Grindr and Fire Island: A Queer History. His reviews and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, Granta, BBC Culture and
elsewhere.
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