Staff Pick
Casey Plett's stunning collection of stories star trans women who are fully fleshed out and profoundly human — something our society, with its regular habit of presenting trans women as cardboard cutouts, rarely accomplishes. They work crappy jobs, discuss literature, do drugs at sketchy parties, and have close relationships with their cats. They have great sex, get harassed by terrible men, visit Mennonite grandparents, and let homeless queer kids crash on their couch. They struggle a lot, but sometimes they're pretty happy. It's a moving experience to see yourself so reflected in a narrative when stories so often erase or mock you, and A Safe Girl to Love does the sacred work of building those complex and beautiful mirrors for us. Recommended By Cosima C., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Eleven unique short stories that stretch from a rural Canadian Mennonite town to a hipster gay bar in Brooklyn, featuring young trans women stumbling through loss, sex, harassment, and love.
These stories, shiny with whiskey and prairie sunsets, rattling subways and neglected cats, show growing up as a trans girl can be charming, funny, frustrating, or sad, but never will it be predictable.
About the Author
Casey Plett wrote a column on transitioning for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and contributed to the Topside Press anthology The Collection: Short Fiction From The Transgender Vanguard. Her work has been featured in Plenitude, Two Serious Ladies, Anomalous Press, and other publications. She is from the Canadian Prairies and the Pacific Northwest and lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Casey Plett on PowellsBooks.Blog
I thought I was lucky that I could be that visible and not be physically hurt. That was my benchmark: being allowed to exist. I look back and I think,
I really was lucky, and I also look back and think,
What a bummer. What standards trans people set themselves for lucky...
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