Stone Butch Blues

I read  Stone Butch Blues.

 It is magnificent.

 Not a false note.

You pick it up, you can’t put it down.

I had high expectations. This book exceeded them.

I intend to buy several copies to give as gifts, it’s that good.

This book should be required reading .

 It deserves to be on the same bookshelf as :

The Diary Of Anne Frank,

 If This Is A Man by Primo Levi,

 and To Kill A Mockingbird.

The same courage,

 indomnitable spirit,

 senseless cruelty and,

 power of the human spirit. 

Jess, the main character, suffers so much and is treated so unfairly by life’s bullies and yet,

 she never loses her humanity.

 She is  treated with hatred and violence or at best, disgust,

 and all she wants is what we all want,

 to be accepted.

The prose is tight, Feinberg is a talented writer.

This book is not depressing nor is it upbeat it is — hard and True.

To quote Leslie Feinberg’s afterword from 2003:

Never underestimate the power of fiction to tell the truth.

It is about a specific time and place and a marginalised segment of society and yet, it is universal.

1950’s Buffalo, New York becomes, anywhere and everywhere.

Great Literature does that.

I’m grateful I read this book.

 I’m grateful I was born, when I was born,

 and that brave women like Leslie Feinberg came before me.

If you have not read Stone Butch Blues.

You Must.

Later girls

BB