In her forties, Erica Rand bought a pair of figure skates to vary her workout routine. Within a few years, the college professor was immersed in adult figure skating. Here, in short, incisive essays, she describes the pleasures to be found in the rink, as well as the exclusionary practices that make those pleasures less accessible to some than to others. Throughout the book, Rand situates herself as a queer femme, describing her mixed feelings about participating in a sport with heterosexual story lines and rigid standards for gender-appropriate costumes and moves. She chronicles her experiences competing in the Gay Games and at the annual U.S. Adult National Figure Skating Championship, or "Adult Nationals"; Aided by her comparative study of roller derby and women's hockey, including a brief attempt to play hockey herself, she addresses matters such as skate color conventions, judging systems, racial and sexual norms, transgender issues in sports, and the economics of athletic participation and risk taking. Mixing sharp critique with genuine appreciation and delight, Rand suggests ways to make figure skating more inclusive, while portraying the unlikely friendships facilitated by sports and the sheer elation of gliding on ice.
Industry Reviews
"Red Nails, Black Skates is a fabulous read, a smart and often hilarious account of one queer critic's journey deep into the heart of figure skating. The intricate interplay of gender, race, and class in skating culture makes it a perfect site for tackling the ways that antigay and sexist paradigms re-enforce one another, as well as anxieties about race and class. In this brilliantly written book, Erica Rand takes feminist sports studies to a new level, without sacrificing her own stories about the pleasures of figure skating and the lessons that she has learned as a skater." Jennifer Doyle, author of Sex Objects: Art and the Dialectics of Desire and the feminist soccer blog From a Left Wing "Erica Rand brings us into the fascinating world of skating on ice. Her personal journey is riveting. In sharing it, she offers insight into the complexities of spending a lifetime immersed in her sport and tells many stories about figure skating that have not been told until now. A brilliant piece of work and a must read." - Helen Carroll, Sports Project Director, National Center for Lesbian Rights "Having spent most of her adult life in the world of art and feminist politics, Rand learned first hand how the sports world is dominated by inflexible gender codes and heterosexual scripts." Sandra Scholes, The Gay and Lesbian Review "A book of essays by self-described "queer femme" Rand, a figure-skating college professor who competed in the Gay Games in 2006, in which she examines the exclusionary practices in the sport (heterosexual storylines and rigidly gendered costumes, for example) but also takes time to celebrate the joy of sliding about the ice." - Diva, June 1st 2012 "Her [Rand's] personal love for skating shines through the essays collected in Red Nails, Black Skates, leading to an incisive yet upbeat analysis of both the sport's shortcomings and the depths of its potential." - Dani Alexis Ryskamp Shelf Awareness for Readers, May 25th 2012 "For an academic, Rand's writing is surprisingly light thanks to her humor and honesty, the latter being one of the book's great strengths. It's not easy to confess superficial anxieties over your appearance chapter after chapter. In the end, Rand upholds her sport by suggesting changes are budding. With more diverse displays of masculinity and femininity on the ice, it's possible the codes can one day be rewritten, or erased altogether." Mai Nguyen, Bitch
