Jim Flint is founder and owner of the world-famous Baton Show Lounge in Chicago—where the finest of female impersonators have been strutting their stuff onstage for more than 40 years. Jim Flint: The Boy From Peoria, a book by Tracy Baim and Owen Keehnen (Prairie Avenue Productions, 528 pages), chronicles the unfettered life of this pioneer of the modern LGBT community.'

After a childhood of poverty and a stint in the Navy, Flint embodied his be-who-you-are philosophy at a time when conformity was king and to be openly gay was a risky business. Running a gay bar in Chicago in the 1960s and 1970s meant placating corrupt cops and dealing with shadowy local Mafiosi, as Flint himself testified in a Mob trial in the early 1980s.

During his flamboyant career, Flint also owned a down-and-dirty leather bar, headed a gay motorcycle club, threw lavish Halloween costume reviews, became a founder of the gay sports movement, created the now-nationwide Continental Pageant System, and ran for the Cook County Board of Commissioners as one of Chicago’s first openly gay candidates.

Known to many by his drag name Felicia, Flint has attracted colorful people from all walks of life.