Though i found cashman's book to be interesting, i did not feel it gave a view of edmonton that was accurate. By this i mean that the notion of the underworld was not looked at. Cashman's book basically gives us funny, short, almost anecdotal scenes of a city that not only saw hardship, but was founded in a part of the world where the weak would not survive. i hate to compare it, but the growth of a city like edmonton kinda reminds me of Knut Hamsun's "Growth of the Soil". out of nothing sprang everything, and the underbelly is what made it all happen. Hagen, on the other hand, jumps right into the underside of our city and exposes the debauchery for all it was. even though some of the details may be embellished to make the story better, i still feel that in writing the history of anything, the writer must do away with the pretenses of the normal.
what is normal is what is accepted, normalcy in many ways can never be achieved
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I'm not sure if Hagen's look at Edmonton was any more accurate, per se, but it was more personal/confessional as opposed to anecdotal, which may account for an increased feeling of authenticity, for some. I don't know if Hagen was attempting to expose the debauchery of the Edmonton underground as much as defend drag culture both as artistic expression and as a legitimate alternate lifestyle; by establishing it as the expression of some kind of innate personal identity I think he's attempting to act as a kind of advocate for a group he (to greater or lesser extents) represents.
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