Something That May Shock and Discredit You

In college, my professors tried to explain literary criticism to me—but I mean, how hard can it be? You take a series of principles and apply them to literature. So, for example, consider feminism and the place women are assigned throughout human history, and ask what we can learn when we re-read Chaucer’s 14th century “Wife of Bath”. The answer is quite a lot. If re-reading Chaucer as a feminist sounds tiresome to you, then you are like most people. If it sounds intriguing, as it did to me, then, you should go to graduate school. Daniel Alexander Mallory Ortberg's collection of essays, Something That May Shock and Discredit You, is "Personal Trans Lit Crit" done for all sorts of cultural output—books, TV, movies, the Bible, show more and so forth. What does the author learn about the trans experience when he reconsiders the Golden Girls, the Adamms family, and oh, how about Jacob and Esau? Anne of Greene Gables? Sometimes this is done as quick, semi-opaque satire, and is funny. Other times, it is profound—when the essence of Hans Christian Andersen’s creativity reverberates off the core questions every trans person asks-- I mean, wow! There are many, many brilliant personal memoir-esque moments in this book as well—but the author is so afraid of falling into “typical trans book tropes”, that he starts off on one journey and then veers as quickly as possible into something else. This is fine! The book sometimes feels like a “coming of age trans” story, but it is not. It’s a book of essays, some quite satirical and alongside or adjacent to the trans theme. So this is NOT a triumph memoir! In the brilliant moments, this book is brilliant. At about 1/3rd way in, I was ready to call it the most wonderful book about the trans experience I’d ever read—it appeals to all the geeky, eclectic brainerisms I enjoy, and yet has subtle moments of poignancy that precisely captures feelings that I recognize. Then I ran into a chapter that didn’t work. At all! And I thought, “goodness, couldn’t he have cut this chapter? Oh well. On to the next…” And there was another one! And then, a return to stunning quality, movement, an acceleration and deepening of the literary reach… “oh no!” I thought, “I bet readers just stopped on those bad chapters. How can I tell everyone about this so they can know to keep going, because it gets so damn good later?” A superhero version of me made stickers that said “skip chapters blank and blank! But keep reading!” And applied them to every copy of the book. That’s it then. This is an amazing book. But when you get to a chapter that clearly isn’t working at all, just skip it. There’s a few of them. I won’t tell you which ones are which, because of course yours will be different than mine. But don’t skip the "abs" chapter. I’ll note that if you have any kind of familiarity with Christianity and scripture, the book will be funnier for you. You’ll know I mean you if you didn’t blink at my use of the term “scripture” in the previous sentence. In other words, if you ever went to a Christian camp at any time in your life, you’ll get more of the jokes and more of the thought-provoking satirical poetic moments. This book will be more enjoyable for you if you are, or ever were, an intellectual Christian *and* you’ve read just about everything, and you've seen all movies and TV shows from ever, *and* you are also trans/non-binary/gender-non-conforming/just generally a queer. But in general? Five stars. Recommended. show less

One thing I did not expect going into this is that I would end up with a crush on Daniel Lavery. The way this man's mind works (fanning myself) is knee-weakening for an intellect-hag like me. This is the single best book I have read about gender transition and it is also one of the most engaging collections of essays on religion and/or pop-culture I have come across. I worship the brain that can go from a mind-bending and hilarious analysis of "The Jerk" to an equally hilarious analysis of Hans Christian Anderson (so unpleasant apparently even Kierkegaard thought him a wet blanket, which is saying a lot), to why Gomez Addams is a transmasculine icon to why Duckie and Captain Kirk are lesbians. At every turn this book is funny. Really show more funny without being cruel or cutting. And at the same time it is honest and touching and deeply personal without being even slightly sappy.

This is a kind and joyful book, showing neither the anger (say Julia Serano) or conciliatory defeatism (say Kate Bornstein) or obstinate refusal to consider the merit of opinions different from the writer (say Susan Stryker) that I see in many books by gender non-binary and trans authors. Lavery looks for the good in people. He understands the resistance of his mother and other family members to calling him Daniel rather than his dead name. He wants to give them space to "make a mistake" of "forget" as they tell him they will. And though he understands, he also knows this is ridiculous, and uses the story of Jacob/Israel to shine light on that ridiculousness, on the lie of the excuses his mother and others are making. But that light he shines is not mocking, it is filled with a beautiful humanity and empathy, qualities so rare these days that it made me tear up a bit.

I saw GR reviews of this from people who apparently have the intellectual curiosity of a ferret and complained because not every word of this was about transition (actually, every word is filtered through a trans man lens, but perhaps that was too subtle) and also those who complained they were bested by bible references, (as if quoting a bible passage to an atheist were equivalent to plunging a wooden stake into a vampire) and I can safely say they are not the right readers for this book. If you are smart, curious, and want to see Mean Girls and gender and evangelical Christianity a whole lot differently than you ever have before, and do not want anger to be the only acceptable response to everything you see and hear which does not confirm your world view, I recommend this book passionately. show less

A delightful and delighted book. Reading this felt really intuitive and also like someone was rearranging the furniture in my brain. It is such a desperately good and theologically insightful book that's so, so incisive and kind (sometimes I try to explain my enjoyment of Danny Lavery's work by saying, "He's the best possible outcome of being raised extremely Protestant."). It is also extremely funny. Not every essay/piece bowled me over completely, but the ones that did--boy oh boy will I be thinking about them for a long, long time.

A collection of essays about the author (co-founder of The Toast)'s approach to first recognizing and then pursuing gender transition mashed up with a sharp take on current popular culture and literature throughout the ages. It might be best summed up as exceptionally clever proof that humans have always been insecure about gender identity and that is all over our literary and other creations, even if we don't want to admit it.

The Mean Girls chapter is the best thing I've seen in print in the 21st century. Just read it.

It's hard to overstate just how funny Daniel Lavery is. He's spent many years spreading Ayn Rand parodies, Jane Eyre texts, and Shatner musings across the internet like an extremely clever dandelion loosing its seeds to the wind. This books maintains that humor and mastery of language, and the literary and pop culture references are still there - they're everywhere, rapid-fire, you know, like dandelion seeds - is this still a good metaphor? - but the heart of the book is the complex, difficult, euphoric subject of transition. Specifically Daniel's transition, although trans and gender-nonconforming people everywhere will probably find something to relate to here. What a joy to spend some time in the world as he sees it, everything show more significant, everything shot through with meaning and hard-earned revelation. I am not the same person on the other side of this book, or I am exactly the same person but more so. One of the two. show less

Supremely enjoyable. I’m not fully up on my classics/scripture so some of the play Daniel does is difficult for me to engage with, but otherwise this work sings. I’ve been reading and listening to his work for awhile and for me this represents a highlight in the genre of memoir and cultural commentary regarding the queer and trans experience. It’s also funny and beautiful as hell.

I read this after reading Becoming a Man by P. Carl. These chapters about a gay lifestyle doesn’t have the power that P. Carl’s memoir has. But it does have lots of humor along with the serious stuff. I think I made a mistake reading it when I did, because a week after reading it I want to reread it rather than making an expectation like I did. Lavery’s look at all the things that made him who his is, stayed with me.