I’m reading and really enjoying the second book by S. Bear Bergman, The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You (Arsenal Pulp Press). It’s a collection of essays about gender and identity. I think we first met when ze taught at Dark Odyssey a few years ago. It’s also interesting to see how these writings have expanded since I first read them on ze’s Livejournal.
Here’s a little about the book from publisher:
Alternately unsettling and affirming, devastating and delicious, The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You is a new collection of essays on gender and identity by S. Bear Bergman that is irrevocably honest and endlessly illuminating. With humor and grace, these essays deal with issues from women’s spaces to the old boys’ network, from gay male bathhouses to lesbian potlucks, from being a child to preparing to have one. Throughout, S. Bear Bergman shows us there are things you learn when you’re visibly different from those around you—whether it’s being transgressively gendered or readably queer. As a transmasculine person, Bergman keeps readers breathless and rapt in the freakshow tent long after the midway has gone dark, when the good hooch gets passed around and the best stories get told. Ze offers unique perspectives on issues that challenge, complicate, and confound the “official stories” about how gender and sexuality work.
You can read a PDF excerpt from the book, The Velveteen Tranny, but you should just order it from your local independent (feminist, queer, radical) bookstore.
Bear is also doing a book tour, and will be traveling to Ohio, New York, San Francisco, Vancouver and other cities: http://sbearbergman.com/tour/. I’ll post about hir New York appearance shortly, and hope to see you there.
