My Fair Lidy
A Comedy Novel

Craig Lideman—Lidy to his friends—lives in a trailer park and works as a laborer on a construction site. It’s a dead-end life, but it’s the only one he’s ever known. Lidy has big dreams but doesn’t know how to go after them. He wants to be a movie star, but his friends and co-workers ridicule his dream. To suppress his frustration, Lidy drowns his aspirations in nightly pub-crawls with his redneck buddies. But Lidy’s life is changed forever the night he and his friends mistake a drag bar for a strip club. When they discover their mistake, they start a fight that ends with an unconscious Lidy being saved by Miss Sal—an internationally famous female impersonator.

Unwillingly taken under the sequined wing of Miss Sal, Lidy becomes immersed in the glamorous world of drag-queen stardom. Eventually Miss Sal convinces Lidy to perform as Marlene Deitrich in a drag contest. After the excitement of winning, Lidy’s dream to be a star is re-ignited and he secretly begins performing in drag shows. A macho heterosexual, Lidy’s encounters with gay society challenges his narrow view of the world. But as he learns to accept others, Lidy’s world expands until it becomes filled with potential.

Lidy’s secret life is eventually discovered by his redneck friends and Lidy’s new world collides violently with his old. Then Lidy is forced to decide if self-worth isn’t also part of his dream.

© Rootie Simms 2006 All rights reserved