Rush, Chris. “The Light Years: A Memoir”, Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2019.

Coming-of-Age

Amos Lassen

Chris Rush was born into a prosperous, fiercely Roman Catholic, New Jersey family. However, the family lived behind a shaky facade which falls down during the late 1960s, Chris’  was destined to fracture their precarious facade. older sister Donna introduces him to the charismatic Valentine, who places a tab of acid on twelve-year-old Rush’s tongue, proclaiming: “This is sacrament. You are one of us now.”

After being forced out of an experimental art school, Rush heads to Tucson to make a major drug purchase and, barely a teenager, he disappears into the nascent American counterculture. He looks to the communes of the west to be his next home and he spends his teen years looking for knowledge, for the divine, for home.

In “The Light Years”, we feel Rush’s  prayer for vanished friends and we become part of his odyssey filled with broken and extraordinary people. We feel “the slow slide from the optimism of the 1960s into the darker and more sinister 1970s.” This book is a journey of discovery and reconciliation, as Rush faces his lost childhood and himself.

 Rush shares his colorful childhood and adolescence as he travels across the country and back again, searching for truth, love, UFOs in New Mexico, peace, something that feels like God, and a home. Rush has a great story and he is also a great storyteller, together we get magic. Even with all of the brutality that he suffered in his life, he writes with grace. I feel sure that he was holding back tears as he wrote just as I was holding back tears as I read.

We can’t help but wonder how Rush survived but I also wonder about his parents who allowed him to leave. What about his resilience in becoming the respected, honored artist he has evolved into. He was the middle child of seven of a successful contractor and his complicated wife whose fiercely Catholic lives include raucous parties attended by members of the diocese of Trenton. The father’s work mostly involved construction of churches, but it is his alcoholism that drives the family. Each of the seven goes in a wayward direction, seemingly without any reaction from the parents.
Chris’s story shows deep involvement into the drug culture of the seventies, his being cast adrift while still in his teens and while he is coming to grips with his own sexuality. This tells more about his character than that of those parents who should never have had a child. I found it strange that Chris professes love for his parents and more understanding and acceptance than they are possibly entitled to.

I read this book turning pages as quickly as I could yet not wanting it to end. I loved reading about the family that I loved to hate. In Chris’ deeply Catholic family the booze flew as easy as the money. His mother ignored her children to shop and fill already bursting closets. Though she was aloof and often cruel with her words and was absent for most of his early life.

His father constantly worked and was a detestable especially when he drinks. Once he threatened Chris with a gun and knife. Chris was unaware of his father’s history until later. Chris bounced around different boarding schools, dealing drugs and eventually getting kicked out because he was caught kissing a boy in the woods. He tried to go home many times, but his parent’s house was one of anger, resentment and hostility.
The twists and turns of Chris’ life kept me reading but then, just when I wanted to know a bit more, the story ended. Now that I think about it, I must admit that this was a clever way to end and while I won’t say why, I bet many of you will agree. I believe that it is his ability to hope, dream, love even though he was damaged and scarred kept him from ever being totally lost.

France, Tan. “Naturally Tan: A Memoir”, St. Martin’s, 2019.

Fashion and Compassion

Amos Lassen

Sometimes I am in the mood to read a really sensitive memoir and Tan France’s came at just the right time. I am sure that many of you have noticed that gay men always want to hear the coming out story from each other. It has almost become part of a ritual of being gay and trusting each other and is usually part of the first conversation that two men share. In this memoir, France “tells his origin story for the first time” and he does so with wit, style, grace and compassion. He shares what it was like to grow up gay in a traditional South Asian family as one of the few people of color in South Yorkshire, England. He tells of coming of age, finding himself and his voice  and marrying a Mormon cowboy from Salt Lake City who is the love of his life.

I suppose that we think of France as the man who can direct our style and fashion and he loves to do that but we also see that he is so much more. We read his candid observations of the United States and Great Britain looking at the cultural differences, meeting with celebrities and the behind-the-scenes realities of “Queer Eye”, He shares his unique perspective on the happiness that one finds in being oneself (that sounds so stilted). France tells us that he wrote this book “to spread joy, personal acceptance, and most of all, understanding. Each of us is living our own private journey, and the more we know about one another, the healthier and happier the world will be.”

I love the anecdotes and candid opinions  that he shares with us and his wit and humor are right on. He also shares style tips and behind-the-scene stories. He wants “to make America fabulous again one makeover at a time” and this means more than just new clothing. We must learn to look at “real-life issues, changes and acceptance on all sides.” I do not know what I was expecting to read here and I learned that Tan France is a paragon of style and class.

I love not only seeing a gay South Asian person on such a mainstream popular show but also seeing how he became loved by his viewers. Because he seems to be
Tan has always come across as the more reserved one among the Fab 5, so I was looking forward to reading more about him and I was pleasantly surprised  with his writing and his charm. He even tells us about his own personal flaws and how he has learned to own them.  There are painful and heartbreaking experiences he has had that he is open about especially the racism that he had to deal with f being one of the few people of color in a small town in England, and how just walking home from school was a lesson in survival.  His observations about brown people hurt to think that skin color is still such an issue. I learned another important lesson (well I didn’t really learn it because I already knew about it but we do not often see it in print)  and that is that success and  being financially fit doesn’t mean that everything is good in a person’s  life. We also see the downside of celebrity life  with constant travel, i press junkets, being away from his partner and feeling lonely and we see that there is a toll for everything we do.

France seems at ease with being a Muslim South Asian and is also still very traditional in his mindset and we see that in his relationship with his husband. Many of us will recognize the conservative nature of the family while growing up and the nervy, nosy family members, the ways we are restricted by our families.  France wants to incorporate his culture within his style and that is admirable.
Here is Tan’s journey to the show and what his life has been like after fame. We also have great illustrations to go along with making a new friend.

Woods, Chavisa. “100 Times: A Memoir of Sexism”, Seven Stories Press,   2019.

100 True Stories

Amos Lassen

Chavisa Woods’ “100 Times: A Memoir of Sexism” is a  memoir of vignettes and a collection of one hundred true stories of sexism, harassment, discrimination, and assault. Woods writes of her experiences with gender-based discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual violence from childhood through the present and she does not hold back. The stories  build in intensity as the number of times grows. Here is proof that sexual violence and discrimination are never just one-time occurrences, but part of a constant battle women and non-binary people. They face it daily.

We see here that sexual violence and gendered-discrimination occur regardless of their age and in all spheres of society and in rural and urban areas alike, in the US and abroad, from the time they are very young and through adulthood. Woods shows us how often people are conditioned to endure sexism and harassment, and how thoroughly men feel entitled to women’s spaces and bodies. Reading this forces us to seethe many ways “in which sexism and misogyny continuously shape women’s lives and are built-in facets of our society.”

This is a powerful, unrelenting depiction of the everyday misogyny experienced by all women everywhere. “It is relatable, cathartic, and deeply moving.”

Sexual violence and sexist discrimination occur regardless of age, in all spheres of society, in rural and urban areas alike, in the US and abroad, from youth through adulthood. People are often conditioned to endure sexism and harassment, and men feel entitled to women’s spaces and bodies,  sexism and misogyny continuously shape Women’s lives are shaped by the built-in facets of  sexism and misogyny in our society.

Shenher, Lorimer. “This One Looks Like a Boy: My Gender Journey to Life as a Man”, Greystone, 2019.

A Memoir of Coming of Age and Gender Transition

Amos Lassen

In this memoir, Lorimer Shenher tells us that it is never too late to become the person you are meant to be; to find your true identity. Since he was a small child, Shenher knew something for certain: he was a boy but he was growing up in a girl’s body. He shares the story of his gender journey, from childhood gender dysphoria to teenage sexual experimentation to early-adult denial of his identity and finally the acceptance that he is trans and undergoes gender reassignment surgery when he in his fifties. Along the way, he details his childhood in Calgary, his struggles with alcohol, and his eventual move to Vancouver, where he became the first detective assigned to the case of serial killer Robert Pickton (the subject of his critically acclaimed book “That Lonely Section of Hell”). “This One Looks Like A Boy” takes us through one of the most important decisions Shenher will ever make, as he comes into his own and finally discovers acceptance and relief.

We see how his gender transition is the transition of a lifetime and indeed of a life. He shares his life with us—his education and growing up, friends and lovers, vocations and avocations, the family that raised him and the one he’s raising himself. This is Shenher’s celebration of how one aspect of his identity touches every other and leads to the long, studied, complex, evolving, often painful journey that we get to share.

Tobia, Jacob. “Sissy: A Coming of Gender Story”, G.P. Putnam, 2019.

Just Not Sure

Amos Lassen

I must admit that I am pretty well conditioned as to how to react to a book that I read but I just finished one that had me quite befuddled (love that word!). Jacob Tobie’s “Sissy” had me crying, laughing and wondering all the way through. It’s about what it’s like to grow up not sure if you’re (a) a boy, (b) a girl, (c) something in between, or (d) all of the above.

When born, Jacob Tobia’s doctor wrote that the new baby was a male and from that point on everything went wrong. Alongside “male” came other, far fewer neutral words that carried expectations about who Jacob was and who Jacob should be— words like “masculine” and “aggressive” and “sports”. Jacob, however,  was a sensitive creative, playful kid who loved glitter and not soccer. For the next twenty years, he was called sissy, trans, queer, non-binary and he looked like he just might be heading a new gender revolution in North Carolina, of all places. Now as he looks back at his childhood (am I using the right pronouns here?), he calls out the stereotypes that we have all faced, and as we think about them, Jacob asks us to rethink what we know about gender and offers us a bold blueprint for a world that is free from gender-based trauma and filled with trans-inclusive feminism.

Jacob had a Methodist childhood and then went through the “hallowed halls of Duke University to the portrait-laden parlors of the White House” and now in ,”Sissy”  takes us on a gender odyssey that is written with brutal honesty, irreverent humor, and touching vulnerability. Jacob shatters the long-held notion that people are easily placed into the categories of “men” and “women.” After reading this, it is almost impossible to ever think about gender–both our own and other people’s in  the same way again.

The focus is on their experience growing into their identity as a genderqueer person. It covers their life from early childhood to the end of college and examines queer identities coming up with the idea that you don’t have to choose just one identity or gender. We read of the little moments that take place with friends and family and strangers and ourselves as we learn about gender identity, and more broadly about who we are.
Jacob writes playfully and in a charming manner that really pulls us in as we remember all of the dumb things that we have heard in our lives and about our gender and/or sexuality. Jacob looks at emotional moments and gives them the space they deserve. There is pain to growing into these identities, both internal and external, and Jacob is able to give space to let those feelings be. Gender here is fun to play with especially after reading so much about trans angst. Jacob’s memoir is about an imperfect journey without focusing only on the pain. As might have been expected, we have so many trans memoirs now; it is as if everyone wants to wrote a book and they do making it difficult to know which to red. This is one of the most sincere that I have come across and there have been thousands and I am not exaggerating.

This book is unapologetically honest and reminds us that it is more than gender that makes us who we are.