Cat Fitzpatrick

2022. An utterly unique book about a group of trans women in Brooklyn. They go to clubs and parties, the trans lady picnic in Prospect Park, and the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference, but mostly they have relationships with each other. Probably the best glimpse into their lives an outsider will ever get. They are almost all white. There’s an Asian character Keiko and a cis Indian woman Aashvi. There are the usual vicissitudes. Poverty, sex work, depression, drugs, alcohol, show more discrimination, misogyny. I thought the ‘in verse’ part might kill it for me, but it works so seamlessly I often forgot it was verse. Basically a trans femme tour de force. show less

To be honest, I checked this out entirely because of the Michelle Tea blurb on the cover.

This is a novel-in-verse which “recalls” Eugene Onegin, which I have not read and know next to nothing about, so anything I was supposed to get out of that I missed entirely.

This is a book whose six main characters are all trans-women, and nearly every character appearing here is trans, and all of them LGBTQIA+. This is a very messy book of relationships and identity and politics, centering a show more call-out which appears about halfway through the book.

The tone of the book seemed to suggest to me that I should be taking this all very lightly, but some of the characters really made me grind my teeth in frustration, which was less fun. The verse worked for me and I liked the way the book gave such diverse snapshots of the NYC trans scene, with not just racial diversity, but characters both recently out as trans and characters who considered themselves trans elders, polya characters on grindr and couples trying to get pregnant…

What I really came away from this book with was the thought of how difficult it must be any time you are in a population where the Venn diagram of your community members and your dating pool is almost a complete overlap.

I liked it and I am glad I read it, but I was definitely left with the feeling that I would have gotten more out of it had I been more familiar with Eugene Onegin first. show less

Anthologies are difficult for me--the variety of included stories is so wide, and I felt that the compilers of this particular collection were not selective enough about the quality of the stories. At best, they were ingenious, clever, punchy; most were frankly mediocre and some were outright sloppily written and edited. I'll be honest and say I did not read every story included, but I feel I spent enough time with this anthology it can be marked "finished."

Favorites (4 stars and show more above):
"What Cheer," by RJ Edwards
"Satan, Are You There? It's Me, Laura," by Aisling Fae
"Imago," by Tristan Alice Nieto show less

Generally, yeah! The rhyme scheme seemed purposely kind of odd and it often doesn't scan, but you know what, it's still a fun idea and an interesting accomplishment. I should quote some of my favorite bits---the stanza about Philly Trans Health makes the cut of course---when I have it on hand.