Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A courageous exploration of Gender, 14 Jul 1999
By A Customer
This courageous and compelling novel by Leslie Feinberg illustrates the life of Jess Goldberg, born gender dysphoric in 1950's America. She comes out as a "butch" in the gay bars and factories, but eventually decides to "pass" as a man when there is no other way to survive. At the end of a plot scarred by emotional and physical brutality, Jess returns to her original he-she identity.Stone Butch Blues cannot fail to touch anyone who reads it. It is not stated how much of the content is autobiographical, but it does not matter - the reality of the characters and the validity of their experiences cannot be denied. Feinberg weaves her tale among the "old" butches and femmes of pre-Stonewall times, women who wore their difference with dignity and pride and refused to surrender to prejudice, even when it cost them their lives. Butch-femme identities were snubbed by political correctness after their refusal to submit gave birth to the Gay Liberation movement, and were also attacked by radical feminism as being a poor imitation of heterosexuality: Feinberg's novel reveals this forgotten fragment of the past in all its glory and dares us to dismiss it. The novel is an indictment of the crushing of human spirits by prejudice, and simultaneously a celebration of those who faced their Armageddon and were ready for the battle. Some were destroyed, some survived - all are heroes. Butch and femme are valorised alike, refuting conceptions of the "femme" identity as being essentially weak. The femmes are prostitutes and drag queens who wear their femininity like a weapon, even down to plucking off their stiletto heels to fight the queerbashing cops. Stone Butch Blues is also an exploration of the nature of gender itself, set among those whose otherness is not located in relation to the opposite sex but in relation to the ideology of gender in general. Many of the butches saw themselves as neither male nor female - as such they can be recognised for their exploration of different possibilities of gender, instead of being accused of lacking the imagination to construct their lives away from the heterosexual paradigm. To reduce these women's lives in this way is to grossly misunderstand and underestimate their complexity. I have sometimes been guilty of this - Stone Butch Blues helped me to realise that I was wrong. Jess does not want to be a man - she is struggling to assert a gender identity for which we still have no adequate words.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Must Read!, 10 Dec 2003
By A Customer
This hybrid/crossover between the genre of novel and biography charts the life journey of one individual suffering from the imposition of a gender identity that does not fit. The journey begins with an account of a childhood filled with confusion and follows Jess, the main character, in hir exploration and search for hir real self. It tracks hir forays into a lesbian community, an attempt to find hirself as a straight man through hormonal treatment and surgery and finally culminates in an almost religious enlightenment.The novel contains scenes of horrific violence, deep sadness and amazing tenderness. It charts the growth of feminism, changes in the lesbian 'community' and the development of medical assistance for trans folk. It is a gripping book and one I was unable to put down.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazingly Great, 25 May 1999
By A Customer
This book is, without a doubt, one of the most deep, yet easy to read books I have ever read. It is, reading level wise, easy to digest. However, you should be ready for the content to make you furious, overjoyed, depressed, and hopeful. This author does not do things by halves for certain sure. I couldn't put this book down, and when I finished, I loaned it to a friend. She read it clear through and loved it too, and she never reads if she can help it. It's just that kind of book. You care about the people in it, and that's the greatest test of any book. It doesn't have a terribly happy ending, but if you read the book you don't expect one. Life isn't so easily wrapped up as that. All in all, a wonderful priceless, thoughtful book well worth reading more than once. I'll read it again as soon as I can steal my book back:)
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