Publisher: Serpent’s Tail
340 pages
Blurb
A
whipsmart debut about three women—transgender and cisgender—whose lives collide
after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires
around gender, motherhood, and sex.
Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship
with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn't hate. She had scraped
together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life
of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then
her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart.
Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by
sleeping with married men.
Ames isn't happy either. He thought
detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost
him his relationship with Reese—and losing her meant losing his only family.
Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When
Ames's boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she's pregnant with his baby—and
that she's not sure whether she wants to keep it—Ames wonders if this is the
chance he's been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of
unconventional family—and raise the baby together?
This provocative debut is about what happens at
the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good
intentions can't reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the
most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us a
thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel.
Review
This isn’t the first time I state that I have
no idea how to review a book, but Detransition, Baby takes that
statement to a whole new level. Not only am I not sure what to say, I don’t
know how to say it either. Trans men and women, transition, as well as
detransition is such a loaded subject (these days) I imagine I’m not the only person
afraid to open her mouth in case I get it wrong and, without meaning to do so,
upset an already vulnerable section of people.
I guess I’ll start with more general statements
about this book. Detransition, Baby is a captivating story featuring
three fascinating main characters. Any story about people attempting to break
the mould and construct a new way of living—a new form of family—is bound to
intrigue the reader, make them think and maybe reconsider what they’ve always
accepted as ‘the norm’. A triangle constructed of three people who barely know
each other and/or barely know each other in their current incarnation is bound
to deliver a thrilling journey filled with ups and downs, accidental faux pas,
and a steep learning curve.
Of course, Detransition, Baby
takes those issues and levels them up to well beyond 11 since it throws
together Reese, a trans woman, Amy/Ames a detransitioned trans woman, and
Katrina, a cis woman who knows very little about trans issues and queer culture
in general.
In this scenario, it would be easy to assume that
I’d identify most with Katrina. And, up to a point I did but I also discovered
that the Reese and Amy’s thoughts and feelings were far less alien to me than I’d
assumed the might be.
In fairness, the scenario as presented in this
book should be a recipe for disaster. Katrina finds herself pregnant by her
lover, Ames. She doesn’t find out that Ames was Amy for several years until
after she tells him she’s expecting. Katrina doesn’t want to raise a child on
her own. Ames wants to raise a child but can’t commit to a future as a dad.
Ames’s ‘solution’ to their dilemma is to bring in Reese, the trans woman he had
a relationship of several years with when he was Amy. Reese desperately wants
to be a mother but transition, of course, doesn’t come with the sudden ability
to fall pregnant.
Over the course of the book, we shift from now—4
to 12 weeks after conception—to Reese and Amy’s pasts. We get to know Reese
best, Amy/Amis almost as well but we learn less about Katrina. Probably because
her life as a cis, mixed-race, and divorced woman is recognisable for most readers.
Initially, I read Reese’s story as something of
a car crash, but it didn’t take me long to reconsider. If I look at transition
as a sort of rebirth and take into account the boost of hormones required to
transition her (or any other trans person) displaying what to me might look
like teenage tendencies, is hardly surprising…to be expected even.
And that paragraph is a good description of my
reading experience as a whole. Many thoughts, feelings, and actions I encountered
were at first alien to me only to become at least somewhat recognisable or
understandable after closer inspection. Without wanting to diminish what is, of
course, a unique experience, I can’t help thinking that we are not as far
removed from each other as we might believe at first. Or rather (and I’m having
a hard time putting these feelings into words), I recognised certain aspects,
be it that they are larger and harsher for trans people and nowhere near as
easy to ignore or push under the carpet as they are for cis people. And
regardless of the (un)truth in that statement, the fact remains that society at
large is so busy establishing a barrier—an ‘us vs. them scenario— between trans
people and everybody else, that everything that does or might connect us gets
lost in the process. As the following quote shows, the book touches on this
idea too when Reese and Katrina discuss divorce:
“The
only people who have anything worthwhile to say about gender are divorced cis
women who have given up on heterosexuality but are attracted to men. [..] They
go through everything I go through as a trans woman. Divorce is a transition
story. Of course, not all divorced women go through it. I’m talking about the
ones who felt their divorce as a fall, or as a total reframing of their lives.
The ones who have seen how the narratives given to them since girlhood have
failed them, and who know there is nothing to replace it all. But who still
have to move forward without investing in new illusions or turning bitter – all
with no plan to guide them.”
Of course, I’m not a divorced woman. But I do
believe there are other reasons for women (people in general?) to reinvent
themselves, with all the confusion and conflicting emotions that creates. Then
again, I can’t rule out that I’m (over)simplifying the issue; restructuring
what I read so that it fits within my own experiences.
I could go on, but I’ll refrain. This book
provoked a ton of thoughts and I know I’ll be pondering them for some time to come.
This is one book I will re-read and re-read again. I took my time with this
story because I knew there was a lot in it for me to process. Despite reading
slowly and consciously I know without a shadow of a doubt that I’ve missed a
lot. In my quest to learn and understand I will revisit this story.
As for the (very) ambiguous ending… I think it was
a good fit. This isn’t an easy tale and shouldn’t come with perfect solutions
and a fairy-tale ending; it’s too real and raw for that. Having said that, now
that I know there will be a television series and that the producer has asked
for a second season, I can’t wait to find out how Torrey Peters will continue Reese,
Amy/Amis, and Katrina’s story.
