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New trans memoir relays strictures of ultra-orthodox Jewish upbringing

Author Stein weaves compelling tale of her journey to self identity

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Becoming Eve, gay news, Washington Blade
(courtesy Seal Press)

ā€˜Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Womanā€™ 
By Abby Chava Stein
Seal Press
$28    
272 pages

Who are you?

There are many possibilities. You can answer with ethnicity, gender, social strata or surname, mention your species, family origins, religion or hobbies. So many things and yet, as in the new book ā€œBecoming Eveā€ by Abby Chava Stein, only one answer really matters.

Yisroel Avrom Ben Menachem Mendel was born on the 24th of Tishrei in the year 5752 ā€” or, for those who are not Ultra-Orthodox Jews, the first of October, 1991. The sixth child and firstborn son, Yisroelā€™s birth was the cause of great jubilation: one main forebear was Baal Shem Tov, a holy leader and the founder of Hasidism. In their Brooklyn community, that made Yisroel a member of royalty.

Almost from the moment of birth, the future was set: Yisroel would follow the same path laid out for the males of the family, starting with ritual circumcision and religious observances, then yeshiva to study the Torah and Jewish law, marriage at age 18 and hope for sons to continue the line. There was no alternative. The entire family lived like this, like ā€œ18th-century Eastern Europeans,ā€ and had done so for centuries. 

The exception came when then-4-year-old Yisroel insisted on having always been a girl.

Later, though other childish things were forgotten, those thoughts never were. They were constant, remembered, boxed up, ignored or excused. Even when theological questions roared, when religious texts seemed to confirm Yisroelā€™s suspicions of girlhood, when sex ā€” a subject no Ultra-Orthodox Jew was supposed to know about until days before marriage ā€” made an all-boy yeshiva more bearable, questions of gender were suppressed. At 18, ā€œmatchedā€ with and married to a woman who was nearly a stranger, Yisroel burned with envy that wearing a bridal gown would forever be denied. Naming their firstborn son was devastating.

ā€œOh, and gender?ā€ says author Abby Chava Stein today. ā€œIt started punching me in the face.ā€ 

Without a doubt, ā€œBecoming Eveā€ may be one of the most fascinating books youā€™ll read this winter. Certainly, itā€™ll be one of the most unusual.

Set in a community that is meant only for adherents, author Steinā€™s story is told in rich detail that lets readers imagine everyday life with restrictions most of us would chafe under, and without internet, blue jeans, fast food or English. These day-to-day details are relayed in a matter-of-fact tone that makes the severity of the ā€œlawsā€ seem even more astounding because of the seeming scarcity of emotion associated in their telling.

Steinā€™s lifelong question of gender almost seems secondary to those astonishments, but as the tale progresses, her demand for answers grows quietly in a way you almost wonā€™t notice until it pounces on you. Whoosh, itā€™s a relief you never knew you were waiting for.

And yet, relief is fleeting: Stein leaves readers hanging by not including an up-to-date which could be frustrating in any other story, but this unusual bookā€™s end still feels just right. For that, ā€œBecoming Eveā€ is a most satisfyingly unsatisfying book, and youā€™ll love it no matter who you are.

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Books

Upcoming books offer something for every reader

From a history of the gay right to a look at queer womenā€™s spaces

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(Book cover images courtesy of the publishers)

Daylight Savings Time has arrived, giving you more sunlight in the evening and more time to read. So why not look for these great books this spring?

If your taste runs to historical novels, you’re in luck. When Yorick spots his name on the list of the missing after the Titanic sinks, he believes this to be an omen: nobody’s looking for him, so maybe this is his opportunity to move to Paris and open that bookstore he’s been dreaming about. In The Titanic Survivors Book Clubby Timothy Schaffert (Doubleday, $29.00) his decision leads to more than a bucolic little business. Out April 2.

If you’re looking for something a little on the lighter side, discover Riley Weaver Needs a Date to the Gaybutante Ball by Jason June (HarperTeen, $19.99). Young adult books are perfect light reading for adults, and this one is full of high-school drama, romance, comedy, and more drama. What fun! Out May 23.

Can’t get enough of graphic novels? Then look for Escape from St. Hell: A Graphic Novel by Lewis Hancox (Graphix, $14.99). It’s the continuing story of Lew, who just wants to live his life as a guy, which he started doing in the last novel (“Welcome to St. Hell”) but you know what they say about one door closing, one door opening. In this new installment, Lew grapples with the changes he’s made and how his friends and family see things, too. This book is fresh and honest and great for someone who’s just transitioned. Out May 7.

For the mystery lover, you can’t go wrong with Clean Kill: A Nicky Sullivan Mystery by Anne Laughlin (Bold Strokes, $18.95). As the manager of a sober living home in Chicago, Nicky Sullivan has her hands full with 10 other residents of the home. But when one of them is murdered, Sullivan reaches back into her past as an investigator to find the killer by calling on her old partner. Fortunately, he’s still working. Also fortunately, he’s got a new partner and she catches Sullivan’s eye. Can love and murder mix? Out May 14.

Can’t get enough of politics? Then you’ll be happy to find Coming out Republican: A History of the Gay Right by Neil J. Young (University of Chicago Press, $30). In the fractious political atmosphere we have now, it’s essential to understand how gay conservatives have influenced politics through the decades. Find this book before November. It may be one of the most eye-opening books you’ll read. Out April 3.

The reader who loves her “space” will want to take A Place of Our Own: Six Spaces That Shaped Queer Women’s Culture by June Thomas (Seal Press, $30) there to read. It’s a book about historically safe places for queer women to be themselves ā€“ and some are surprisingly very public. Interviews with iconic feminists and lesbians round out a great look at the locales that queer women have claimed for their own. Out May 28.

And now the housekeeping: Release dates can change and titles can be altered at the last minute, so check with your favorite bookseller or librarian. They’ll also have more recommendations if you need them because there’s a lot of time for reading now.

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Books

Gay author takes us on his journey to fatherhood in ā€˜Safeā€™

One man’s truth about the frustrations and rewards of fostering

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(Book cover image courtesy of Atria Books)

ā€˜Safe: A Memoir of Fatherhood, Foster Care, and the Risks We Take for Familyā€™
By Mark Daley
c.2024, AtriaĀ Books
$28.99/304 pages

The closet is full of miniature hangers.

The mattress bumpers match the drapes and the rug beneath the tiny bed. There’s a rocker for late-night fusses, a tall giraffe in the corner, and wind-up elephants march in a circle over the crib. Now you just need someone to occupy that space and in the new book, “Safe” by Mark Daley, there’s more than one way to accomplish that dream.

Jason was a natural-born father.

Mark Daley knew that when they were dating, when he watched Jason with his nephew, with infants, and the look on Jason’s face when he had one in his arms. As a gay man, Daley never thought much having a family but he knew Jason did ā€“ and so, shortly after their wedding, they began exploring surrogacy and foster-to-adopt programs.

Daley knew how important it was to get the latter right: his mother had a less-than-optimal childhood, and she protected her own children fiercely for it. When Daley came out to her, and to his father, he was instantly supported and that’s what he wanted to give: support and loving comfort to a child in a hard situation.

Or children, as it happened. Just weeks after competing foster parenting classes and after telling the social worker they’d take siblings if there was a need, the prospective dads were offered two small brothers to foster.

It was love at first sight but euphoria was somewhat tempered by courts, laws, and rules. Their social worker warned several times that reunification of the boys with their parents was “Plan A,” but Daley couldn’t imagine it. The parents seemed unreliable; they rarely kept appointments, and they didn’t seem to want to learn better parenting skills. The mother all but ignored the baby, and the child noticed.

So did Daley, but the courts held all the power, and predicting an outcome was impossible.

“All we had was the present,” he said. “If I didn’t stay in it, I was going to lose everything I had.ā€ So was there a Happily-Ever-After?

Ah, you won’t find an answer to that question here. You’ll need to read “Safe” and wear your heart outside your chest for an hour or so, to find out. Bring tissues.

Bring a sense of humor, too, because author and founder of One Iowa Mark Daley takes readers along on his journey to being someone’s daddy, and he does it with the sweetest open-minded open-heartedness. He’s also Mama Bear here, too, which is just what you want to see, although there can sometimes be a lot of tiresome drama and over-fretting in that.

And yet, this isn’t just a sweet, but angst-riddled, tale of family. If you’re looking to foster, here’s one man’s truth about the frustrations, the stratospheric-highs, and the deep lows. Will your foster experiences be similar? Maybe, but reading this book about it is its own reward.

“Safe” soars and it dives. It plays with your emotions and it wallows in anxiety. If you’re a parent, though, you’ll hang on to every word.

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Books

A travel memoir with a queer, Black sensibility

Nonbinary author Shayla Lawson is the Joan Didion of our time

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ā€˜How to Live Free in a Dangerous World: A Decolonial Memoirā€™
By Shayla Lawson
c.2024, Tiny Reparations Books
$29/320 pages

Joan Didion, one of the greatest writers and journalists of the 20th century and 2000s, wrote superbly crafted essays ā€“ telling engaging stories about the places she traveled to. Reading her, you sensed Didion reacting personally to her travels, and, as a writer, clocking it. To write in stories for her readers. 

Shayla Lawson, a nonbinary, Black, disabled poet and journalist, is the Joan Didion of our time.

Their new work, ā€œHow to Live Free in a Dangerous World: A Decolonial Memoir,ā€ is a provocative, impeccably crafted, hard-to-put down, travel memoir in essays. (Lawson uses they/them pronouns.)

Lawson is author of ā€œThis is Major,ā€ which was a finalist for the National Book Criticsā€™ Circle and the LAMBDA Literary Award, and the author of two poetry collections, ā€œA Special Education in Human Beingā€ and ā€œI Think Iā€™m Ready to See Frank Ocean.ā€  They have written for New York Magazine, Salon, ESPN and Paper, and earned fellowships from the Yaddo and the MacDowell Artist Colony.

Yet, despite this impressive track record, Lawson, who grew up in Kentucky, and has lived and traveled everywhere from the Netherlands to Brazil to Los Angeles to Kyoto, Japan to Mexico to Shanghai, had to wait nine years before a publisher would wrap their head around releasing a travel memoir in essays.

Thankfully, Lawson had the  chutzpah to persist in seeking a home for her memoir. Kudos to Tiny Reparations Books for valuing Lawsonā€™s writing and publishing ā€˜How to Live Free in a Dangerous World.ā€

From the get-go of their memoir, Lawson draws us in. Weā€™re with them on the plane. Right away, weā€™re with Lawson ā€“ a writer whoā€™s clocking it  ā€“ telling their story ā€“ while theyā€™re on the plane. At the same time, weā€™re reading the story that Lawsonā€™s writing. 

In a few nano-secs, we get that Lawsonā€™s stories have a queer, Black sensibility.

ā€œOur story starts in an airplane,ā€ Lawson writes in the opening of the memoir, ā€œwith the sound of long acrylic nails tapping on laptop keys, the sound of black femme poetics…ā€

ā€œOnly connect,ā€ writes queer writer E.M. Forster in his 1910 novel ā€œHowards End.ā€

Lawsonā€™s daring memoir is a dazzling mosaic of connections between race, class, gender, sexuality, death, queerness, love, disability, grief and beauty.

Lawson met Kees, their ex-husband, a white man from the Netherlands, when he was in Harlem during a layover on a flight to Brazil for a six-month back-packing trip through South America, Lawson recalls. They meet cute over pizza, fall in love, and marry.

In the Netherlands, Lawson has to learn a new language and is stuck living in a beautiful, but boring village. They volunteer at a refugee village, that Lawson discovered had been an ā€œinsane asylum.ā€ That village, Lawson thought, wasnā€™t  beautiful.

Lawson discovers beauty and sexuality when she meets up with a hunky gondolier in Venice.

In post-dictatorship Zimbabwe, they experience what itā€™s like to hang out with other Black people, where everyone is Black. 

In one of the memoirā€™s most compelling chapters, Lawson visits artist Frida Kahloā€™s house in Mexico City. Kahlo was disabled. She had spina bifida.

At age 39, Lawson was diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. They have chronic pain from the disability.

A doctor (with the bedside manner of Attila the Hun) told Lawson that they would die. ā€œItā€™s a strong presentation,ā€ Lawson remembers the doc said to her.

Often, disability is left out of storytelling. If included, itā€™s put in a box ā€“ separated, disconnected, from other intersections of the narrative (gender, sexuality, race, class, sexual orientation, etc.).

One out of five Americans is disabled, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and Lawson writes, post-COVID that 60 percent of Americans have been diagnosed as chronically ill.

Lawson brings ableism out of the shadows.

Iā€™m white, cisgender, queer and legally blind. Iā€™m one of the many for whom Lawsonā€™s experience of ableism will ring true.

Theyā€™ve ā€œcalled me a bitch,ā€ for moving slower, Lawson writes.

The last time Lawson traveled when ā€œI didnā€™t return in a wheelchair,ā€ was 2019, they write.

But that wonā€™t stop them from traveling, Lawson writes.

ā€œHow do I want to live,ā€ Lawson asks, ā€œin such a way that someone will be honored by how I die.ā€

ā€œHow to Live Free in a Dangerous Worldā€ is exhilarating, but sometimes discomforting reading. Lawson makes you think. If youā€™re white and, using all the right pronouns, for instance, you can still be clueless about racism or being entitled.

But Lawsonā€™s memoir isnā€™t a hectoring sermon. Itā€™s a frisson of freedom, liberation and hope.

ā€œNo matter where you are, may you always be certain who you are,ā€ Lawson writes, ā€œAnd when you are, get everything you deserve.ā€

Check it out. You wonā€™t be able to get it out of your head.

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