Book Reviews

Book Blurb

Some stories don’t need exaggeration. Just honesty. Stillness and Survival by Jacob Anthony Rose is a raw memoir about trauma, drag as survival, chosen family, and learning that love was never something to earn. A powerful, deeply human read.

I was a quiet boy with loud dreams. But dreams don't grow well in a house full of fear.
As a gay child in a home where silence meant survival, I learned to vanish. For years, I kept my voice hidden - not just from the world, but from myself.

Then came music. Drag. Glitter. Applause.

And, for a time, freedom. Onstage, I could be someone bigger than the pain. For twenty years, I sang and performed my way into pieces of joy I never thought I'd know.

But trauma has its own rhythm.

In the quiet of the covid years, the past came roaring back. I lost my voice again - this time to adulthood pain, depression, and the unhealed echoes of my childhood. STILLNESS and SURVIVAL, is a story of silence and expression, queerness and survival, collapse and return. It is about finding your own voice - again and again - even when the world tries to take it away.

This is not just a memoir.

It's a reclaiming. 

 

Book Review

Drag performers have a long history, being well-remembered from original Shakespearean plays (in which such casting was serious, necessary, or intentionally comedic). And, still today, note appearances in several popular operas. Though times may have changed, recollection has a strong place in gay history. As a youngster, I recall seeing the popular Jewel Box Review performing in New York's Catskill Mountains (where the star wryly commented on keeping bag of potato chips in her bodice, lest the boys get hungry!). And Greenwich Village was home to many favoring street drag until, eventually, all that remains popular is the annual Halloween parade.

 

'Stillness and Survival' is a fine recall of a stratum of gay life and time. It presents a view of drag, and a period in gay history, and psychological challenges (which may or may not be gay related!). It is not for every reader – lacking shock, psychological reveal, and not even detailed sexual explication – which for most prospective readers is quite necessary. The lengthy forward and this review will assuredly advise whether you are knocking on the correct literary door.

 

Note: Forgive the interchangeable use of 'he' and 'she' in this review. While the identification is variable according to how the author sees the author's self, for an outside viewer this often seems confusing. But you'll always know who I mean.

 

The author/subject is Jacob Pavia, born in 1979. His parents had a difficult, short-lived relationship. What follows is most peculiar – and were this not a biography, it would clearly seem quite fictive. His father is described as an unpleasant, non-loving parent; often apt to be violent, which continues even after he quit drinking. And the author's early youth is, at best, somewhat peculiar, eventually resulting in panic attacks and PTSD.

 

By sixth grade, the author knew he was attracted to other boys; that he was gay. (One wonders at the author's truth, as he recalls in later life meeting a doorman at a gay club who, earlier in school, had teased him without mercy for being gay.) 

 

Eventually the author comes out to his father (who, surprisingly, was accepting!) and she began performing in drag as Sheena Rose, and became sexually active. And here is her cause d'etre! (“I was searching for something deeper [than a casual hookup]. I wanted love. I wanted a boyfriend - a partner who would care about me beyond the surface, who would see me and more than just a body.”)

 

The next section of this story details coming out, becoming sexually active, moving towards independence. By age twenty-five, Sheena Rose makes the leap to San Francisco, with her boyfriend Andy, and is walking in drag in the Pride Parade. Oddly, as Sheena Rose becomes more comfortable with drag, boyfriend Andy draws apart, taking umbrage as Sheena so easily fell into the new persona, such as shaving her legs.

 

The book continues with Sheena's social and performance history, and through her meeting with and marriage to Juan in 2013. They begin to perform together. And author Sheena continues parsing the San Francisco drag scene with many reminiscences and much drag gossip – all of which may be quite entertaining to many particular readers. The details provided are familiar to drag fans, and educational to the non-cognoscenti. With Juan, she “shaped my style into something timeless – a blend of Marilyn Monroe's glamour, Jayne Mansfield bombshell bravado, and a splash of Devine's irreverent camp.”

 

As with any story, intermittent crises seem necessary to hold attention, and so it was Covid that affected their world. Sheena's straight job is affected, and she drinks too much. Eventually, then in her forties, Sheena is diagnosed with depression and severe PTSD.

 

Here follows a parsing of mental and emotional difficulties (including breakdowns coming in waves), and the approach of various treatments – which, as a particularly interesting presentation, are better to be read than reported here in a review. This biography is indicative of how varied breakdowns and recovery seem relatively unique, each generated differently, and treated in singular manners. (And so, the publishers economically blessed?) The efforts at health, i.e., “I am enough.” and “I choose joy today.” are presented as to capture the reader's interest and sympathy. 

 

By the end of the bio, the hero/heroine is well-known to us, and the joys and travails become familiar. For every reader? Likely not. But for the right reader, a satisfying adventure.

 

 

 

DISCLAIMER: Books reviewed on this site were usually provided at no cost by the publisher or author. This book was provided by the author for the purpose of a review.

 

Additional Information

Format	ebook and print
Length	Novel, 236 pages
Heat Level
Publication Date	06-January-2026
Price	$0.99 ebook, $15.99 paperback
Buy Link	https://www.amazon.com/Stillness-Survival-Between-Trauma-Glitter-ebook/dp/B0FRSG3L5Y