41
BOOKS
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Misfortune
Girl, you'll he a man soon
by Wesley Stace; Breakout Books, 2005; $23.95
hardcover
Trans twists tangle complex plots in two new novels
n Misfortune, Wesley Stace mixes Charles
Dickens with Jeffrey Eugenides to create a
delicious tale of gender
identity and family rivalry in
Victorian England.
The time is 1820. Lord
Geoffroy Loveall, the inhabi
tant of Love Hall and the
wealthiest man in England,
spots an abandoned baby on a
junk heap. Rescuing it from
certain death, the heirless
Lord Geoffroy carries the baby
home and adopts it as his
own, naming it Rose in mem
ory of his deceased sister and
dressing it in ruffles and lace.
Problems ensue when it’s dis
covered that Rose is a boy,
a fact that the effeminate Lord
Geoffroy, deep in mourning
from the passing of his
beloved sister, refuses to
acknowledge.
As Rose grows, so does her confusion about
why her figure doesn’t match her best friend
Sarah’s and why she feels the urge to stand
while peeing like Sarah’s brother. The first
whiskers of adolescence and sleeping in the
same bed with Sarah don’t help.
Meanwhile, all manner of outraged relatives
circle Love Hall, determined to lay claim to
the family fortune and steal it from Rose. In a
particularly enjoyable scene, a cousin tries to
I
out
seduce Rose only to dis
cover that there’s more to
her than he imagined.
Stace, who’s better
known as the musician
John Wesley Harding
(he’s produced 13 albums,
including Awake, featur
ing a duet with Bruce
Springsteen), has written
an ambitious first novel. J
More than 500 pages long
and spanning 75 years,
Misfortune (a clever play
on words—Rose’s nick
name is Miss Fortune)
examines how gender
roles are influenced and
how the courageous
young hero/heroine learns
to incorporate both the male and female
aspects of his/her personality into a complete
identity.
Stace does a terrific job of keeping a
complex plot afloat with plenty of twists and
historic details (including original period-like
ballads written by the author-composer), and
Rose’s narrative voice is a delightfully
observant combination of innocence and
purposefulness.
—Floyd Sldaver
out
out
out
Choir Boy
by Charlie Anders; Soft Skull
Press, 2005; $16.95
hardcover
11 H .
you’d do nearly anything
in order to achieve it? What
if you barely understixxl the
implications of the “nearly
anything” that you were
willing to do, but they would
change your very identity?
What if it would also change
your sex?
This is the situation 13-
year-old Berry Sanchez finds
himself in as he searches for
a way to avoid the fate of
others whose voices have changed, thus remov
ing them from the St. Luke’s Episcopal Cathe
dral boys’ choir. To preserve his sweet soprano
voice, he first tries to slice open his testicles
and then, thanks to the help of a sympathetic
transsexual he meets at his shrink’s office,
begins taking female hormones—with surreal
and unexpected results.
Author Charlie Anders once identified as a
choir boy but has come to identify and be iden
tified as a male-to-female transgender writer
out
out
with a quirky, sassy, tomgirl-ish fashion sense
and effervescent personality. As with her previ
ously published nonfiction book, The Lazy
Crossdresser, this first novel is filled with good
humor and subtle social insights. Anders
weaves an enchanting mixture of wholesome
ness; gritty, angst-filled teen reality; and selfless
yet narcissistic fairy tale
romance into a hip, capti
vating and thought
provoking written tapestry.
Her ability to craft concise
and believable dialogue is
exceptional, and her short,
punchy sentences keep the
pace moving at a breezy,
youthful pace.
If there is a fault to be
found in Choir Boy, it is that
Anders seems strangely
enamored with pithy, ultra
hip comments that, like a
beautiful pom star repeated
ly looking into the camera,
seem more acutely self-
aware than absolutely nec
essary. But this is a minor
criticism, given the book’s •
nuanced depth and easy reading quality.
In addition to providing a good old-
fashioned, downright absorbing read, Anders
has crafted an important message about un
intentional gender transformations that will
touch even the most sexually vanilla. One does
n’t need to be transgender to fall in love with
the single-mindedly aesthetic Berry Sanchez. All
one needs to be is a human being who has felt
out of place, awkward or otherwise Other.
—Theresa “Darldady” Reed JM
out
out
out
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