Just out., August 17, 2007, Page 23, Image 23

AUGUST 17. 2007 jUStlOUti23
at the hands of her Catholic priest, who also
tormented her with puzzles, riddles and rebuses.
Ultimately, Per’s Brad-Pitt-like beauty can’t
compensate for his lying, cheating and excessive
drinking. To the author’s credit, however, she
doesn’t paint the two main characters in the broad
brushstrokes of hero and villain. Although there’s
no denying the third-wave feminist perspective
that informs her work, Bryson is too mature,
honest and iconoclastic a writer to reduce her
characters to victim vs. oppressor stereotypes. Her
Clementine is far removed from the saintly Virgin
Mary who appears to her in a blue haze through
a bus window toward the beginning of the novel.
This is a girl who keeps jars of rancid urine
beneath her bed, prefers not to share her seat with
strangers on the bus, gives as much emotional
pain as she gets, and attempts to cut her wrist in
a pathetic attempt to score sympathy from her dis­
integrating boyfriend. In other words, she’s human.
The novel’s pervading elegiac tone alerts the
reader in advance that there probably won’t be
a happy ending, but it doesn’t need one. Girl on
a Stick is subversive in that it’s a love story in which
the couple’s ultimate breakup is the happy ending.
It’s not that the relationship between Clementine
and Per was a mistake, merely that it wasn’t meant
to be forever. Equally intriguing are the novel’s
stylistic innovations. Clementine, asnarrator, often
bridges the invisible divide to address the reader
directly, in what the author says was partly intended
as “taking the piss of Bridget Jones’s Diary." There is
extensive, semi-Joycean wordplay, and the text is
enlivened with drawings, diagrams and crosswords
that drive home the interconnectedness of its
themes and the fact, alternately depressing and lib­
erating, that our childhtxxl remains with us forever.
Bryson, now 38, admits that Girl on a Stick is
“loosely based on a relationship I once had” but
denies that it’s entirely autobiographical. While
acknowledging the themes of power and imperi­
alism that crisscross the hxik, she ultimately exor­
cises them, and the cynicism of Clementine, with
gixxj old-fashioned hope and resilience. “In addi­
tion to the power stuff, I was writing about hope
and green trees,” she says. “About how you break
free from such systems and structures and learn to
grow sprouts—extra limbs, fingers, hands—and be
alive on your own terms.” ©
T ony L e T1GRE is an artist, writer, student, fledgling
publisher and brazen male hussy. E-mail him at
anthi my le tigre@gmail .com.
Vecfax’S&c&'V
LsVe.
Portland author takes a wild trip through same-sex marriage and beyond
by Malka Geffen
eren deMotier, a stay-at-home mom tor the past 16 years, has had her
Having the marriages constitutionally banned and then annulled took the
hands full with her three kids and their giant Labrador, guinea pig,
wind out of many happily married sails. “It was the way [the marriages! were
lizard and many other pets. Published first in Just Out 13 years ago,
annulled,” says deMotier. “Saying they were invalid at the time they were
she’s also been using those hands to write freelance articles—social
issued, saying it never happened."
commentary and humor pieces about the joys and challenges of being
She and her partner briefly considered moving to Canada. “Feeling alien
a lesbian mom. When she and her spouse of 20 years, Jannine Setter, had the
in our country, we went the day [same-sex marriage] became legal there—it
opportunity to legally marry tn Multnomah County in March 2004, they
felt so right. The law came first, not religious opinion or opposition,”
jumped at the chance. And then, like a true
deMotier says.
expositor, deMotier wrote about it.
With kids deeply rooted in Portland, the
With The Brides of March: Memoir of a Same-
family decided to stay. “But we're sorrowful,
Sex Marriage (¿Universe, 2007, $15.95 soft-
and the invisibility of it is over for everylxxly
cover), deMotier delivers a same-sex marriage
but still present for us.”
memoir you could bring home to mother. “It’s
When the news came out about the
f I "5 Beren deMotier
really about lives—experiencing this unique
passage of House Bill 2007 in May, deMotier
time in history,” says DeMotier. “The desire to
says she had an article poised to send out.
marry symbolically and legally is extremely
“I really believed it would be challenged.
Memoir of a Same-Sex Marriage
meaningful and universal.” The humor and
I think [a referendum] will be on the ballot,
humanity are definitely in the details of the
and we’re in for a rough time and more
book, which chronicles the impromptu wed­
character assassinations. I wish [domestic
dings of minivan-driving lesbians who—along
partnerships] had been called civil unions,
with their kids, friends and relatives—deal with
and I disagree that domestic partnership is
the subsequent blow of losing said marriages.
more recognized though it is more palatable
In a chapter full of question and exclama­
because it’s clearly not marriage. The people
tion marks—suitable for the harried way the
who wrote the legislation acknowledged
marriages came together that fateful day—
that.”
deMotier provides a lens into the mindset and
When it comes to character assassination
mayhem of the moment. “Would it really hap­
and harassment, deMotier knows of what she
pen? I hoisted the port-a-potty up the stairs... .
speaks. “We had a ‘Just Married’ sign up in
and set it by the front door. Would we really be
our yard, and people put a razor blade in our
able to get a license and get married? 1 shoved
lawn and dog ptxip.. .in our liberal neighbor -
a dozen nutrition bars into a freezer bag." BtxJily
htxxl. It’s hard to imagine someone would do
necessities are never far from a mother’s mind,
that knowing kids live there,” she says.
even when she and her partner are about to get
While she doesn’t think opponents will
the rights, protections and responsibilities they
use the “sicko stew” approach this rime,
and their family deserve.
deMotier says things could still get ugly. “The most painful part is when straight
Things weren’t all dandy, however, as the children of the couples lined up
people who care about you and wish you well think it’s your issue instead of
for marriage licenses got a dose of the hateful and hurtful opposition. “The kids
a human rights issue that should matter to everyone,” deMotier adds.
were extremely excited and into us getting married but were pretty shocked at
Meanwhile, deMotier, who has been compared to humorist Bnna Bombeck,
the protesters and how they could believe the things they were saying,"
battles on with her mighty pen. She continues working on articles as well as
deMotier says. “The experience really politicized them.”
a new humor hx)k—funny stones about the neighborhrxxJ and life as a lesbian
Although no privileges or rights were ever afforded with the marriages per­ mom—called Maggots Before Breakfast. ©
formed in Multnomah County, the support from allies was nothing to balk at.
“The biggest thing that happened was that people got it,” says deMotier. “In
For more information about BEREN DEMOTIER and the book, visit
our lives, there were people who assumed we were already married, were on our
www.berendemotier.com and www.thebridesofmarch.com.
side and then really got what we’d been denied. The enormous outpouring of
love was a very unexpected joy and blessing and was illustrative of how much
MALKA G effen has plenty of room in her head. Fill it by e-mailing
not having that understanding meant to us.”
malkageffen@gmail.com.
[ HE BRIDES
JL of march
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