More Good Words for She’s Not the Man I Married

“The (im)perfect modern love story, She’s Not the Man I Married tackles the big questions—the meanings of gender, why we love the people we love, how we love the people we love—honestly, articulately, and with tremendous eloquence. The brave and personal nature of Helen’s story offers deep insights into true love, romance, commitment, and how to handle it when the other woman is your husband.”—Josey Vogels, sex columnist and author of Bedside Manners: Sex Etiquette Made Easy

Praise for She’s Not the Man I Married (#3)

“Written from the rare perspective of the spouse of a transgender person, Helen Boyd’s new book is a daring love letter for her partner, their relationship, and any couple who has dared to love outside of the traditional gender script. Part journal, part queer studies, part liberation manifesto, Boyd fearlessly surrenders her own comfort zone to illustrate how there is a cost for everyone — trans or non-trans — to function in our world constructed by engendered expectations.”

—Abigail Garner, author of Families Like Mine

Word-a-Day Tarot

Sometimes I forget to pull off my Word-a-Day calendar pages as the days pass, & so I’m left with a stack of them when I finally catch up. I put them in my inbox and read through them at a later time; words I already know well & use regularly get thrown out, and ones I find interesting or useful and are less known to me I put back in the inbox so I can re-read them and re-read them until I use them in a sentence somewhere (usually only in my journal) and so learn to use a new word.
Writer’s habits 101.
But there was an odd little sequence when I pulled off a clump of pages recently.

On October 19th sansculotte showed up.
On October 18th, hirsute.
On the 17th, opusculum.
On the 16th, popinjay.
On the 15th, alterity.

To me it read like a Tarot reading. Had I asked the right questions as I pulled the pages off, of course.

What is my past?
The biggest hurdle of my past?
My probable reality?
My greatest fear of who I really am?
My truth?

I’m sure I could keep on doing this, since the 20th is mogul. (What is my most unrealistic wish?) I feel like I’ve invented a verbal I Ching.

Proof Pages

Yesterday I received a small sample of the proof pages of the book so that I could see the layout, and I’m thrilled with how it looks. They’ve done some text formatting that is exactly what I like and that echoes my typing/handwriting in ways that are really groovy.
It’s an exciting thing to see, the first time the bookness of the book is really apparent to me, when it doesn’t look like a Word document anymore, but like the book it will become.

Regarding Transgender Tapestry #110

I received my copy of Transgender Tapestry #110 the other day, and so turned immediately to the Book Review section, as I’d been asked to write a review of Richard/Alice Novic’s Alice in Genderland quite a while back.

I had also been told, by Richard Novic and by then-editor Dallas Denny, that Richard Novic didn’t like my review, and had requested TT run a more favorable review instead. Ms. Denny opted to run both reviews, side by side, and told me as much. I was okay with her decision, even though I found Novic’s request somewhat odd, as I wrote what was at worst a mixed review, but by no means a bad one. (I even used the phrase, “highly recommended” which is generally not found in a bad review.)

That was as much as I knew until I received my copy in the mail the other day. It was quite a surprise to see, in addition to my review and the requested 2nd review, a note by Richard Novic effectively rebutting my own review and plainly stating “I was hoping that as a reviewer, she might rise above the way my book affected her personally. . .” In addition, she mentioned how “surprised” she was that TT had chosen me to review her “life story.”

For the record, then, a few corrections.

(1) Richard Novic specifically requested, by email, that I review Alice in Genderland for TT. Suffice it to say the new editor of TT, Denise LeClair, and the old editor of TT, Dallas Denny, both have a copy of said email.

(2) The review I did submit had been re-written several times after I let Richard Novic read it and before I sent it to TT. She was not happy with my original draft(s), so I softened a good deal of my criticism of it.

(3) I sent Richard Novic my review of her book beforehand only as a personal favor, and in fact re-wrote the piece some only because we had become somewhat friendly over time. He had written to me on previous occasions, having read my book, to ask advice about publishing houses & the like, and I gave her what information I could about the advantage of publishing with a house as opposed to independently. I do not and did not harbor any personal animosity toward Richard Novic, but I have learned my lesson: I will not let someone read a review I’ve written before submitting it for publication again.

(4) Dallas Denny was not responsible for the inclusion of Alice Novic’s “note” about my review, having resigned her post as editor between the time she submitted the two reviews and the actual publication of TT #110. She has said she found the publication of such a rebuttal in TT an embarrassment both to Richard Novic and to TT.

(5) Generally speaking, authors do not rebut their reviews. It’s considered bad form. They may occasionally factually correct a reviewer, if anything.

(6) The announcement in the same issue of TT that Richard Novic is to be one of TT’s regular columnists makes the publication of that note even more unprofessional and smacks of favoritism.

Finally, I want to state that I stand by my review. The idea that my “personal feelings” overwhelmed my professional considerations is laughable; after all, half of what I do professionally is advocate for partners! More than anything, however, I wanted people – crossdressers especially – to understand how rare and highly individual Dr. Novic’s situation is, so that they would not make the tragic mistake of expecting their own wives to accept their having boyfriends on the side. As it is, so many wives are already stretched to the limit in terms of accepting and honoring their husbands’ crossdressing. I will also reiterate that I found Richard Novic’s honesty about his own bisexualism and his journey toward self-acceptance laudable and useful.

If people would like to read more reviews of the book – including some of my more personal feelings about it – do check the thread on our message boards where some of our regular posters chimed in as to their own feelings about the book, too.

Paris Review?!

Oh, the sobbing and wailing and gnashing of teeth! Literary hoaxsters awash on The Strand… except that that’s not the way it goes, is it? Instead, James Frey gets more time on Oprah and wait, is that Laura Albert on the cover of Paris Review? Oh, it is! It is!

You want queer memoirists, real ones? Here’s a short list, literary world. I can pretty much guarandamntee that none of these books got the publicity they should have while you were frothing about JT LeRoy (the person Laura Albert pretended to be).
There’s Max Wolf Valerio’s memoir of transition, The Testosterone Files, and Jamison Green’s Becoming a Visible Man, and Matt Kailey’s Just Add Hormones. S. Bear Bergman’s Butch is a Noun is a great memoir of life in the butch lane.
There’s life as a queer girl from Michelle Tea in Rent Girl, Alison Smith’s Name All the Animals, and Fun Home by Alison Bechdel.
Then there’s just about anything by Patrick Califia.
Shoot, you want MTF memoirs? Take She’s Not There, or, for the more sexual side of things, Richard Novic’s tale of his part-time life as a woman, Alice in Genderland.
(Oh, right. There’s me, too.)