Books
Geena Davis kicked ass onscreen long before she did in real life
Iconic actress revisits her ‘Polite’ life in new memoir

‘Dying of Politeness: A Memoir’
By Geena Davis
c.2022, Harper One
$28.99/288 pages
Years ago, a colleague videotaped me as I apologized for bumping into a desk. “I’m sorry,” I said to this inanimate object, “I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings.”
If you’re terminally polite, love kick-ass movies and worship bad-asses, you’ll lap up “Dying of Politeness: A Memoir” by badass, feminist, Academy-Award-winning actor and activist Geena Davis.
In the memoir (Davis’s debut as an author), Davis, 66, tells entertaining, sometimes moving, stories about her wide-ranging life: from her childhood (her parents were more polite than Emily Post ever dreamt of) to her acting career to finishing in 24th place in archery in the 2000 Summer Olympics trials.
Davis, a queer and feminist icon, has been in many movies. Her awards include an Oscar for best supporting actress for her portrayal of dog trainer Muriel Prichett in “The Accidental Tourist,” the adaptation of the Anne Tyler novel of the same name. Davis watched her boyfriend (Jeff Goldblum) turn into an insect in “The Fly” and played Barbara in the comedy-horror picture “Beetlejuice.”
Davis is loved by LGBTQ folk for her work in two 1990s classics.
In 1991, she was Thelma (Susan Sarandon was Louise) in “Thelma and Louise,” the classic film that made many women cheer and a lot of men squirm.
Just a year later, Davis was Dottie in the movie that’s still a fave of hetero and queer girls and women — “A League of Their Own.” Unlike the series with the same name recently released by Amazon Prime, the film has no explicitly queer characters. But with Madonna (Mae) and Rosie O’Donnell (Doris), the picture has a fab queer quotient.
You’d think, after watching Davis as Thelma and Dottie, that the Oscar-winning actor leapt from her mother’s womb as a badass.
But it’s clear from the get-go that it took more than a minute for Davis to emerge as her badass self. Davis could easily have titled not only the first chapter of her memoir, but the entire book, “My Journey to Badassery.”
“I kicked ass onscreen way before I did so in real life,” Davis writes.
But, “Dying of Politeness” is a more than apt title for the memoir. Her parents were loving, but polite to the point of absurdity.
They insisted that Davis say “no thank you, I’m not thirsty” “even if someone was handing me an already poured glass of ice water,” Davis writes.
One of Davis’s childhood memories was of the time her 99-year-old great-uncle drove her and her family to his house. The relative kept veering into the oncoming “if blessedly empty,” traffic lane, she recalls. Rather than saying anything, “my parents simply moved me to the spot between them on the back seat,” Davis writes, “thinking, I presume, that when the inevitable head-on collision occurred, I’d be killed a little less in the middle.”
The humor in this anecdote of a childhood brush with death is typical of the wit sprinkled throughout “Dying of Politeness.”
Davis, who grew up in Wareham, Mass., decided at age 3 that she wanted to be in the movies. After studying acting at Boston University, Davis left college and moved to New York.
Davis may have been as she writes, “a cripplingly polite New Englander,” but she wasn’t lacking in chutzpah.
In New York, Davis worked as a Lord and Taylor sales clerk. On a dare, she joined a group of mannequins in a café scene in the department store window. Soon, people lined up to watch her perform in street theater.
Davis got her first movie role in “Tootsie” after Sidney Pollack saw her pictures in the Victoria’s Secret catalogue. Dustin Hoffman, starring in the movie, mentored her. He told her not to sleep with her co-stars.
The memoir is more than entertaining. Davis writes of sexual harassment, her effort to create inclusion in Hollywood by founding the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media and how her dad cared for her mom when she had dementia.
It’s hard to think of a timelier book than “Dying of Politeness” in our current political climate. Badassery is needed now more than ever.
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Books
I’m a lesbian and LGBTQ books would have changed my life
Misguided parents pushing Montgomery County court case

As a child born in Maryland in the 80’s, I had very few LGBTQ+ role models other than Elton John and Ellen DeGeneres. In high school, I went through the motions of going out on Friday nights with boyfriends and dancing with them at prom, but I felt nothing. I desperately wanted to fit in, and it took me until my senior year of high school to finally admit to myself that I was different – and that it hurt too much to hide it anymore.
When I think back on those years, I feel the heartache and pain all over again. I used to lay awake at night begging God not to make me gay. When a boy on my Cross Country team accused me and my friends of being lesbians, I scoffed and said, “You wish.” I hid my true self in cheap wine coolers while my hate for myself festered.
I found healing in books, my creative writing class, and my school’s literary magazine. Writing allowed me to hold up a mirror to myself and see that I could be many things: a loving daughter and sister, a supportive friend, a dedicated member of the Cross Country team, and also a girl who wanted a girlfriend. In my love poems, I evolved from ambiguous pronouns to distinctly feminine ones. When I felt ready to tell my best friend, I showed her one of my poems. To my surprise, the world did not end. She smiled and said, “It’s a good poem. Are you ready to go to the mall?”
I’m one of the lucky ones. When I finally did come out to my parents, they told me they would always love me and want me to be happy. That’s not the case for more than 40% of LGBTQ+ youth, who are kicked out of their homes after they find the courage to tell their family who they truly are. We are facing a mental health epidemic among LGBTQ+ youth, with 41% seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, the vast majority living in homes that aren’t accepting.
Some of the dissenting parents in Mahmoud vs. Taylor argue that inclusive books aren’t appropriate for elementary school kids. To clarify, these books are simply available in schools – they aren’t required reading for anyone. There is nothing sexual or provocative about stories like “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” or “Jacob’s Room to Choose” that send a very simple, non-political message: We all are different, and we all deserve to be treated with respect. Opting out of books that show diversity, out of fear that it might “make kids gay” fails to recognize a fundamental truth: art, pop culture, even vegan food cannot make someone gay. I was born this way. There were times I wished that I wasn’t, and that was because I didn’t have books like these telling me it was OK to be who I am.
I wonder how many parents opting out of these books will end up having a LGBTQ+ child. It is both horrible and true that these parents have two choices: love and accept your LGBTQ+ child, or risk losing them. Now that I’m a parent myself, I feel more than ever that our one aim in parenthood is to love our kids for exactly who they are, not who we want them to be.
For several years, a grocery store in Silver Spring, Md., displayed a poem I wrote for my mother in my school’s literary magazine. I wrote about how she taught me that red and blue popples can play together, and that Barbie doesn’t need Ken to be happy. I imagine that maybe, a girl passing through the store read that poem and saw a glimpse of herself inside. That spark of recognition – of I’m not the only one – is all I wanted as a child. I was able to find my happiness and my community, and I want every LGBTQ+ child to be able to do the same.
Joanna Hoffman was born and raised in Silver Spring, Md. She is the author of the poetry collection ‘Running for Trap Doors’ (Sibling Rivalry Press) and is the communications director for LPAC, the nation’s only organization dedicated to advancing the political representation of LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary candidates.
Books
A boy-meets-boy, family-mess story with heat
New book offers a stunning, satisfying love story

‘When the Harvest Comes’
By Denne Michele Norris
c.2025, Random House
$28/304 pages
Happy is the bride the sun shines on.
Of all the clichés that exist about weddings, that’s the one that seems to make you smile the most. Just invoking good weather and bright sunshine feels like a cosmic blessing on the newlyweds and their future. It’s a happy omen for bride and groom or, as in the new book “When the Harvest Comes” by Denne Michele Norris, for groom and groom.

Davis Freeman never thought he could love or be loved like this.
He was wildly, wholeheartedly, mind-and-soul smitten with Everett Caldwell, and life was everything that Davis ever wanted. He was a successful symphony musician in New York. They had an apartment they enjoyed and friends they cherished. Now it was their wedding day, a day Davis had planned with the man he adored, the details almost down to the stitches in their attire. He’d even purchased a gorgeous wedding gown that he’d never risk wearing.
He knew that Everett’s family loved him a lot, but Davis didn’t dare tickle the fates with a white dress on their big day. Everett’s dad, just like Davis’s own father, had considerable reservations about his son marrying another man – although Everett’s father seemed to have come to terms with his son’s bisexuality. Davis’s father, whom Davis called the Reverend, never would. Years ago, father and son had a falling-out that destroyed any chance of peace between Davis and his dad; in fact, the door slammed shut to any reconciliation.
But Davis tried not to think about that. Not on his wedding day. Not, unbeknownst to him, as the Reverend was rushing toward the wedding venue, uninvited but not unrepentant. Not when there was an accident and the Reverend was killed, miles away and during the nuptials.
Davis didn’t know that, of course, as he was marrying the love of his life. Neither did Everett, who had familial problems of his own, including homophobic family members who tried (but failed) to pretend otherwise.
Happy is the groom the sun shines on. But when the storm comes, it can be impossible to remain sunny.
What can be said about “When the Harvest Comes?” It’s a romance with a bit of ghost-pepper-like heat that’s not there for the mere sake of titillation. It’s filled with drama, intrigue, hate, characters you want to just slap, and some in bad need of a hug.
In short, this book is quite stunning.
Author Denne Michele Norris offers a love story that’s everything you want in this genre, including partners you genuinely want to get to know, in situations that are real. This is done by putting readers inside the characters’ minds, letting Davis and Everett themselves explain why they acted as they did, mistakes and all. Don’t be surprised if you have to read the last few pages twice to best enjoy how things end. You won’t be sorry.
If you want a complicated, boy-meets-boy, family-mess kind of book with occasional heat, “When the Harvest Comes” is your book. Truly, this novel shines.
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Books
Chronicling disastrous effects of ‘conversion therapy’
New book uncovers horror, unexpected humor of discredited practice

‘Shame-Sex Attraction: Survivors’ Stories of Conversion Therapy’
By Lucas F. W. Wilson
c.2025, Jessica Kingsley Publishers
$21.95/190 pages
You’re a few months in, and it hasn’t gotten any easier.
You made your New Year’s resolutions with forethought, purpose, and determination but after all this time, you still struggle, ugh. You’ve backslid. You’ve cheated because change is hard. It’s sometimes impossible. And in the new book, “Shame-Sex Attraction” by Lucas F. W. Wilson, it can be exceptionally traumatic.

Progress does not come without problems.
While it’s true that the LGBTQ community has been adversely affected by the current administration, there are still things to be happy about when it comes to civil rights and acceptance. Still, says Wilson, one “particularly slow-moving aspect… has been the fight against what is widely known as conversion therapy.”
Such practices, he says, “have numerous damaging, death-dealing, and no doubt disastrous consequences.” The stories he’s collected in this volume reflect that, but they also mirror confidence and strength in the face of detrimental treatment.
Writer Gregory Elsasser-Chavez was told to breathe in something repellent every time he thought about other men. He says, in the end, he decided not to “pray away the gay.” Instead, he quips, he’d “sniff it away.”
D. Apple became her “own conversation therapist” by exhausting herself with service to others as therapy. Peter Nunn’s father took him on a surprise trip, but the surprise was a conversion facility; Nunn’s father said if it didn’t work, he’d “get rid of” his 15-year-old son. Chaim Levin was forced to humiliate himself as part of his therapy.
Lexie Bean struggled to make a therapist understand that they didn’t want to be a man because they were “both.” Jordan Sullivan writes of the years it takes “to re-integrate and become whole” after conversion therapy. Chris Csabs writes that he “tried everything to find the root of my problem” but “nothing so far had worked.”
Says Syre Klenke of a group conversion session, “My heart shattered over and over as people tried to console and encourage each other…. I wonder if each of them is okay and still with us today.”
Here’s a bit of advice for reading “Shame-Sex Attraction”: dip into the first chapter, maybe the second, then go back and read the foreword and introduction, and resume.
The reason: author Lucas F. W. Wilson’s intro is deep and steep, full of footnotes and statistics, and if you’re not prepared or you didn’t come for the education, it might scare you away. No, the subtitle of this book is likely why you’d pick the book up so because that’s what you really wanted, indulge before backtracking.
You won’t be sorry; the first stories are bracing and they’ll steel you for the rest, for the emotion and the tears, the horror and the unexpected humor.
Be aware that there are triggers all over this book, especially if you’ve been subjected to anything like conversion therapy yourself. Remember, though, that the survivors are just that: survivors, and their strength is what makes this book worthwhile. Even so, though “Shame-Sex Attraction” is an essential read, that doesn’t make it any easier.
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