Full title: "Minette: Recollections of a Part-Time Lady" by Steven Watson. The book is a biography of legendary drag queen Minette.
"I was born Jacques Minette and my parents were French. "Minette" means many things: "pussycat", "pussy", or "suck me". It isn't too easy to translate, and it isn't a word used in polite company I've heard, but I think it sounds gay.
It is me especially without the "Jacques". My mother painted landscapes and still lives. My father was a commercial artist but he got arthritis in his hand and couldn't paint anymore. He went to the first world war, with all that dampness. It got to him later. First, he had a nervous breakdown that went into shingles that became arthritis and finally a dropsical condition. So my father was sick for years, always going to anyone that claimed a cure. I went to work to help pay the bills."
