Man Enough to Be Woman: The Autobiography of Jayne County

The saga of a true rock & roll eccentric, by turns mindlessly rambling and hilariously brash, this autobiography offers a raw and raunchy tour of the transsexual side of the underground music scene of the last 25 years. Jayne County (ne Wayne Rogers in rustic Dallas, Ga.) came to prominence as a proto-punk chanteuse in the New York glam rock scene of the early '70s. Her concerts came across as a kind of gross-out theater of the absurd, complete with prosthetic body parts and portable toilets. Here, County recounts 30 years of heartbreaks and cat fights, brushes with more famous peers like David Bowie, Johnny Rotten, Debbie Harry and Sting and countless performances, tours and style changes. She tells of arriving penniless in New York in time to partake of the Stonewall riots and Woodstock; camping around New York with Warhol divas like Candy Darling and Jackie Curtis; making the nascent U.K. punk scene as Wayne County and the Electric Chairs (""we must have played every fucking toilet in England""), and bottoming out in Berlin's sleazy transvestite demimonde. County has cross-dressed much of her life, taken hormones and had her nose done, but never did undergo a total sex change (""I'm used to my little friend by now, and quite honestly I'd rather save up the money for a facelift""). (Apr.)