I have talked in the past about how I can’t really read memoir from trans women with a critical eye. If I could I would tell you how @jesswadleigh’s voice is strong, and clear, and looks at her past with an unflinching emotional honesty that shows the growth she’s made since the times she’s recounting. That she can take a meandering chaotic season in the lives of three humans in the interregnum between adolescence and the rest of their adult lives and deftly find the emotional story in it.
Instead, I just want to linger in the cherished memory of a confession gone right and remember the times I’ve known a most beautiful girl in the world who was my partner in crime. Or wallow in how we all deserved a better adolescence and interregnum. Or build my own parallel timelines and contemplate the way twelve years creates a young trans experience both familiar and foreign to my own.
This isn’t for sale yet at Zines & Things, but there may be a copy or two left in the Small Press Room at the downtown Powells after Small Press Palooza. Congratulations to Jessica on the first (of many??) readings at Powell’s and if you can’t find this one, go buy another one of her zines.