NIFF BOOKS | Daniel Wilkinson

Writing in drag project

The collection of texts that make up Sally Fairbrass's writing are unusual in their frank pornographic portrayal of sexual acts which remain shocking to us so many years after their writing. The fact that the author, Sally Fairbrass, was a young working-class woman, in a male-dominated environment surrounded by the decaying industry of late 80s Doncaster only adds to their curiosity. These are not texts emerging from the avant-garde or from the cheap pornography of Mayfair and Escort, but from the mind of an ordinary young woman, from a fairly stable home environment, that enjoyed Top of the Pops and spent Saturday’s meeting her friends at Woolworths. The texts, which are published here for the very first time since 1991, can be read as a disturbing insight into the imagination of Sally, and by extension, a portrayal of a young woman’s existential rebellion against the world.

Text by Gareth Bell-Jones