A Dream of a Woman | 
pickI loved Little Fish and was thus excited to read Casey Plett‘s story collection and it does not disappoint! She centers trans women of many varieties and, while she doesn‘t shy away from tough topics, this isn‘t quite as devastating as LF. I really enjoyed it!
"Peace fills every pore of her at once, as if she‘d stepped out the window to walk on the sky and a wind of stardust had swirled through her body and shot her higher, like she was nothing, nothing, nothing."
-"Enough Trouble"
"Gemma doesn‘t hate herself. She used to, of course, but she came up against the hard limits of that hatred‘s usefulness over the years, bumped along its ceiling like an aquatic creature in a tank, and somewhere in the sea of sweaty, trembling mornings, that hatred faded."
-"Enough Trouble"
"She‘d never know. Perhaps she might not want to. *Be careful not to practice your righteous acts before men to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.* Mennonite secrets often covered for cruelty and evils banal. But sometimes, every now and then, they could contain an intentional kindness."
-"Enough Trouble"
pickA collection of stories told from the viewpoint of transgender women. Beautiful writing, with many of the stories set in the Canadian prairies.
This was my #DoubleSpin selection. #BookSpinBingo @TheAromaofBooks
"It was a mental sleight of hand, an escape through a wall; the bovine stasis that had characterized his adult life suddenly transfigured into bovine momentum."
-"Obsolution"
"Hazel had felt herself teetering on an edge then, between a fear of how volatile it might be to continue knowing these boys and a distant sadness at the knowledge that she might never see these stupid fuckers again."
-"Hazel & Christopher"
pickQuiet, acute and bittersweet. I recommend this collection featuring trans women who are as real as real can be. They deal with ordinary adult concerns—jobs, longtime addictions, looking for love that will last—complicated by their unique experiences of being trans. One of the stories is a novella split into 5 chapters, interleaved with the other stories; somehow more satisfying than reading it of a piece. #LGBTQ #CanadianAuthor #shadowgiller2021
“Stopping again is always an option, and that keeps me sane. Just like when I‘m not drinking, I know starting again is always an option, and that keeps me sane too.”
Her inner conception of her appearance is amorphous and difficult to describe, but if she had to try, she might say it is of something masculine without a face, a muscular crush of feathers travelling through a room.
“Some people say it was Menno shit, or small-town shit, but Gemma knows better. None of it‘s special. There‘s a line in a book by Miriam Toews herself: “It‘s just something that happens sometimes, a story as old as time, and this time it happened to me.”
(I love seeing one former Mennonite acknowledging another within fiction. #CanLit)
“That‘s the thing,” Robyn had said softly. “After a certain age, bio family is chosen family, too. You choose to keep it up—or you don‘t. Both kinds can be unhealthy. Both kinds can be good. And you‘re never obligated to do a thing to someone who isn‘t good to you. Ever.”
We were sold that what‘s written on the internet was forever, but the fact is, so much of it was impermanent daydreams and abysses, gone the second you forgot how to look it up or the owner deleted it or unfriended you, or it lived on a remote subdivision that the Wayback Machine just wasn‘t meant to capture.
Truth was, you could be trans and not pass, and this might suck, but it didn‘t make you any less trans or less of a woman. You could be trans if it made you a homo, be trans without taking hormones, be trans and keep your old friends if they weren‘t dicks, be trans and keep your dick, be trans if you wanted to be out about it, for God‘s sake. You know what being stealth does to your soul?
Was David gonna transition? Who fucking knew? Not him. It was a scary thought. For years, he‘d spent nights on the internet, discovering how one went about this. And every night, he‘d gone to bed blocking out more fears than he‘d started with. The spectre of poverty & rejection & violence alone were enough to instill an understanding in his body: You only do this if you‘re 300 percent sure.
The main character, Hazel, is involved in a sex workers‘ rights organization that “consisted of two factions: white academics/camgirls and twinky Métis social workers.”
I went to the internet to find out what‘s a camgirl … Oh! I didn‘t need to click on any of the search results to understand the term.
Heading into a new book… it‘s a good sign when I‘m intrigued by the epigraphs.
pickNo surprise I loved Casey Plett's most recent short story collection. She writes about (and for) trans women, often looking at relationships between them. Her characters are so intricate and authentic. From one woman with Mennonite roots returning to the prairies to another leaving Portland queertopia to transition in NYC anonymity, the stories crackle with quiet complexity. The characters felt like friends who came to visit and left. I miss them.
Took myself out for lunch on my last day of work before maternity leave!! Yum, pesto mac and cheese and a Casey Plett book 📚🏳️🌈🧀
#QueerBooks #TransBooks
"She thought of a generation of girls who might grow up strong and unbothered and untouched, healthy, beautiful, learned, and full of love, who could fall into adulthood knowing girlhood, girlhood in full, having the chance at normal kinds of pain, who would grow and grow and grow and grow and grow and grow and grow and grow and become oceans, gentle armies, thick with pared-down wisdom and love." ? #TransBooks #QueerBooks #CanLit
So thrilled to get Casey Plett's latest book in the mail today!! Seriously have to stop myself from dropping the other three books I'm reading right now.
"Centring transgender women seeking stable, adult lives, A DREAM OF A WOMAN finds quiet truth in prairie high rises and New York warehouses, in freezing Canadian winters and drizzly Oregon days."
Plus, look at that gorgeous cover with art by Sybil Lamb!
#QueerBooks #TransBooks
