James St. James on "Freak Show"

High school can be hell. I'm sure every reader remembers the hormone-fueled drama of feeling like a square peg in a round hole, yearning to be one of the popular kids, and fretting over whether your outfit hits exactly the right combination of Sigmund the Sea Monster and swamp slut. Okay, that last one might not be a universal experience, but it's exactly the sort of dilemma faced by Billy Bloom, the young protagonist of the new novel Freak Show.

Billy is a budding drag queen, recently transplanted to a posh private school in Florida, where he's a fabulous peg in a very square hole. After dressing like Ziggy Stardust as Captain Jack the pirate for his first day of school, he's earmarked for endless teasing and bullying. Fortunately he makes a few friends to help him get through the daily ordeal, including, surprisingly, a star athlete. But even the reflected glow from the school's golden boy can't protect him completely, so Billy fights back the only way possible: outrageously. He throws his glamour in the school's face by running for homecoming queen, setting off a media circus and shock waves that shake his school's social hierarchy.

Billy is the creation of James St. James, a man long associated with fabulousness and glittering nightlife. St. James was a famous fixture on the Manhattan club scene in the late 80s and early 90s. He still retains a certain celebrity status, and is a "pop culture theorist" according to the internet. His first book, Disco Bloodbath, was a memoir of his drug-fueled youth and the murder of club kid Angel Melendez. (The book has since been renamed Party Monster, after the successful movie it inspired.) This is not exactly the life story of Judy Bloom. How did St. James come to write a book for young adults?

"It seems like a stretch but it really isn't," says St. James during a phone interview. He's probably given scores of interviews about Freak Show at this point, but he still speaks with enthusiasm and seems delighted to chat with me. It's easy to imagine him the center of attention at a party. He's funny, but he wants you to be in on the joke.

"After Party Monster came out on DVD I noticed that my fan mail, almost exclusively, was from 14- 16-year-old gay boys," he continues. "It never occurred to me that teenagers would be reading it. It was sort of upsetting at first, because I didn't know if they were really getting it, or if it seemed like I was glamorizing drug use and murder. So this was my chance to write something in that vein, that celebrates personal style and being different, without glamorizing drug use.

"It was my chance to do something for the children," he adds with a note of self-aware dramatic flair.

I suspect there's a bit of St. James in his young protagonist. But Billy is such an unusual bird that I feel compelled to try to find a way of asking that dreaded question, 'Where do you get your ideas?' My awkward query provokes laughter.

"That was my high school experience!" exclaims St. James. "Billy Bloom is James St. James is Billy Clark. We're all the same person, and that was my first day of high school. I had just seen Auntie Mame and thought I was Rosalind Russell. I roared into class, threw the door open, and said,'Isn't this divine!' Everyone just stared. I realized that in those 30 seconds I had effectively doomed myself for the next four years to be picked on."

He explains that the first half of Freak Show is very true to his own teen years, complete with a closeted quasi-boyfriend. He relished the chance to rewrite his history. "Billy Bloom is stronger than me. That's the me I wish I was. I wish I had taken my high school experience in a more positive direction."

It's hard to imagine a fictional character could outdo the real St. James, who responds "that would take some research" when I ask him what his most over-the-top club outfit was. After a moment's thought, he remembers a pizza outfit. "I was a giant piece of pizza," he recalls, "and the game was that I had to be different every time I wore it. So one night I would be an older, elegant slice of pizza with a grey wig and a walker. Then I'd be a punk rock pizza. Nobody thought it was funny except for me."

The same can not be said for Freak Show, which is getting a reception that rewrites St. James's first outing in the literary world. "When Disco Bloodbath came out, it got really awful reviews," he crows. "This time Publisher's Weekly and Kirkus Reviews gave me star reviews and really gave the book a blowjob. They take me seriously this time, so I feel vindicated."

Does this mean St. James will keep writing, or is he too busy being a pop culture theorist? What is a pop culture theorist, anyway?

"I don't know, but I'm using that from now on," he laughs. He also reveals that although he's ambivalent about the writing process - "I write one sentence then I take a week off to celebrate" - he's got another young adult book in mind.

"It's about a gay teenage werewolf. The metaphor really works. I have a little repressed homo who becomes a werewolf and stalks boys and tears at their clothes.