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So yeah, I finished Stone Butch Blues last week and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I had braced myself for endless suffering, and there was so much suffering, but I am still so glad I read it.
There was almost nothing in it I related to (except being very pro-union lol) and much that I found perplexing (mostly the sex stuff--no shock there--and some of the ideas about gender that are quite dated but important), but I also learned a ton. I struggled with the first few chapters because I found the prose too...simple? That's not the right word. It just wasn't stylistically what I enjoy. Too many short sentences in a row. But I came to appreciate it as a way of evoking the voice of a working-class, (formally) uneducated woman who is struggling to find her place in the world.
The episodic nature of the book creates its own rhythm; it's essentially a book about a woman finding community and/or stability, then losing it (often in incredibly violent circumstances), sinking into depression, then fighting for it again, repeat repeat repeat. Jess and her friends are living their lives in a constant state of danger, and they know it. Most of the violence comes from the state (the police are the truest villains in the book) or through the powers of capital. It's a communist book, though it's not as overtly communist as I kind of expected being familiar with Leslie's politics and life. I thought it did a great job of handling the political stuff. I was particularly moved by the queerplatonic relationship between Jess and her neighbor, who is a transwoman, and I think it's significant that after a book about Jess trying to find a sexual/romantic partnership that works for her, the (hopeful) ending is found in this friendship and work in labor organizing. Community is complicated and messy but absolutely vital and the lines between romantic/sexual relationships, friendships, solidarity partnerships, etc. are blurred in ways that I think is really realistic.
I appreciated talking about this book in community with a bunch of queer women/nonbinary folks, and I was fascinated by the very different ways that we read Jess's gender identity in particular. Jess didn't fit into the categories offered by the time in which she was living (late 50s through late 70s), but even though we have a lot more categories and labels now, I don't think she really fits into any of them either, which I really appreciated.
Shoutout to the two scenes that made me cry:
So yes, I have now read an important queer novel, and I'm glad I did.
There was almost nothing in it I related to (except being very pro-union lol) and much that I found perplexing (mostly the sex stuff--no shock there--and some of the ideas about gender that are quite dated but important), but I also learned a ton. I struggled with the first few chapters because I found the prose too...simple? That's not the right word. It just wasn't stylistically what I enjoy. Too many short sentences in a row. But I came to appreciate it as a way of evoking the voice of a working-class, (formally) uneducated woman who is struggling to find her place in the world.
The episodic nature of the book creates its own rhythm; it's essentially a book about a woman finding community and/or stability, then losing it (often in incredibly violent circumstances), sinking into depression, then fighting for it again, repeat repeat repeat. Jess and her friends are living their lives in a constant state of danger, and they know it. Most of the violence comes from the state (the police are the truest villains in the book) or through the powers of capital. It's a communist book, though it's not as overtly communist as I kind of expected being familiar with Leslie's politics and life. I thought it did a great job of handling the political stuff. I was particularly moved by the queerplatonic relationship between Jess and her neighbor, who is a transwoman, and I think it's significant that after a book about Jess trying to find a sexual/romantic partnership that works for her, the (hopeful) ending is found in this friendship and work in labor organizing. Community is complicated and messy but absolutely vital and the lines between romantic/sexual relationships, friendships, solidarity partnerships, etc. are blurred in ways that I think is really realistic.
I appreciated talking about this book in community with a bunch of queer women/nonbinary folks, and I was fascinated by the very different ways that we read Jess's gender identity in particular. Jess didn't fit into the categories offered by the time in which she was living (late 50s through late 70s), but even though we have a lot more categories and labels now, I don't think she really fits into any of them either, which I really appreciated.
Shoutout to the two scenes that made me cry:
the fire where Jess loses everything and the scene where she goes to the institution to visit the older butch who had inspired her as a kid. That last one TORE ME UP
.So yes, I have now read an important queer novel, and I'm glad I did.
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This is true and an interesting point. There has always been a tension in the community where we know we're not fitting into the boxes provided by the dominant culture, so a new set of boxes is proposed, but it's not possible to fit everyone into those either. You very much see that dynamic in SBB, where the butch/femme dichotomy offers some kind of freedom from heteronormative gender roles, and yet obviously the box labeled 'butch' is just bursting at the seams with all the diversity of gender that it absolutely cannot neatly contain. And it's not just a matter of "oh yeah back then they didn't know XYZ" because it's still happening and it happens with every gender categorization scheme that has ever been proposed.
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I really struggle with the whole butch/femme dichotomy because it feels so restrictive to me, but I know it can still be so important to people, so I just remind myself that it's not for me!
I remember you making a post about the book a year or two back? I need to hunt that down so I can read your thoughtful thoughtful thoughts!
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