Good morning!
The NYPL starts its gradual reopening this week and I’m thrilled to be heading there this afternoon to pick up a few of the (queer) books I’ve had on hold since March.
In the meantime, I’m recommending a book that made me cry in the lobby of the branch across the street from my office.
I was heading home for Thanksgiving the next morning and wouldn’t be back in the city before my copy was due, so I snagged a spot on one of the small couches by the checkout desk after work to read the final essay. It’s gorgeous and I cried tears of sadness and happiness and many other things and did the same while re-reading it a few days ago for this newsletter.
Does that make you want to read this? I personally love a good book-induced cry, but I understand that might not be for everyone.
— Becca
Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden
Nonfiction, March 2019
I love a good memoir, and this is a really good memoir.
I initially picked it up because I knew it touched on queerness and grief and I happen to be particularly interested in both of those things. And while they’re certainly major themes, the book is just as much about growing up biracial, having two parents battling addiction, sexual assault, complicated familial relationships, and even more complicated friendships between teenage girls.
T Kira Madden isn’t the first person to write a memoir about these subjects. But what sets this one apart right from the beginning is the writing. It’s honest, it’s visceral, it’s beautiful, and it’s kind of brutal. It’s a mix of short vignettes and lengthy essays, compiled in a non-linear way that is somehow not at all confusing and perfect for the narrative. It’s impressive!
And, as it feels relevant to this particular newsletter, it’s pretty queer. Though she doesn’t come out or start dating women until the second half of the book, there are plenty of hints in the earlier pages that rang *quite* true to me, given my similar timeline:
Enjoying a friend’s ballet recital because it’s “nice to watch her teacher kick-kick-kick her legs in a leotard” and “see every dent of her body under that skin-like fabric.” (Sounds familiar.)
Having a crush on “every girl who’s ever worked her hair into a pencil twist” (Yep.)
The line, “It’s not that I never thought about it. Girls. Women. It’s that I thought about it too much.” (... ouch.)
The reactions to her coming out also made me want to recommend this book to every straight person I know as a guide on what not to do in this situation. There are several painful examples in here. She even got the tried-and-true “... but you’re pretty,” which, to this day, is the best backhanded compliment I’ve personally ever received.
But the final essay, “Kuleana,” is what really got me. She tells her mother’s story, from her childhood in Hawai’i to her adolescence in Florida to all of the parts of her young adult life she’d kept hidden. She also writes about the aftermath of her father’s death, pieces of her relationship with her now-wife, Hannah, and other things I won’t mention here because I want you to discover them on your own and experience the same joy I felt in that NYPL lobby many many months ago.
Queer points:
+3 for T Kira casually mentioning wearing a tie to a maybe-date before she officially comes out
+7 for a friend’s definitely gay older sister who introduces her to Fiona Apple
+11 for describing a fantasy in which she has a sleepover with her middle school science teacher and tries on her slacks
Buy it from Books Are Magic