Dangerous Families: Queer Writing on Surviving

by Sycamore; Matt Bernstein

• ISBN13: 9781560234227
• ISBN10: 1560234229
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2004-02-26
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Queer survivors piece together the clues to discover their own lives! Dangerous Families: Queer Writing on Surviving goes beyond the recovery narrative to create a new queer literature of investigation, exploration, and transformation. Twenty-six stories illuminate the reality of growing up in fear, struggling to rebuild lives damaged by sexual, physical, and/or emotional abuse. The book explores how abuse turns queer survivors--male, female, and transgendered--into healers, heartbreakers, and homicidal maniacs, presenting brilliant stories that sear and soar. Dangerous Families: Queer Writing on Surviving addresses all forms of abuse head-on, representing a cross-section of queer survivors in terms of race, class, ethnicity, education, origin, sexuality, and gender. Contributors use their own life experiences to create a book that takes back control from well-meaning outsiders,” as they recount the daily struggle to overcome the damage done to their minds, bodies, and spirits in a world that denies their gender, sexual, and social identities. From the editor: Dangerous Families consists entirely of writing by survivors of childhood abuse. That's right--no therapists analyzing our plight, no talk-show hosts exploiting us--just survivors, exploring our complicated, frightening, and fulfilling lives. These stories dispense with the usual technique of carefully massaging the reader's fragile worldview before plunging this unsuspecting innocent into a world of horror. They go right to the horror, the beauty, and the joy, often throwing the reader off-guard, revealing layers of meaning before the reader can step back.” Dangerous Families: Queer Writing on Surviving is an anthology of 26 true stories of growing up queer in families that magnify the horrors of the outside world instead of offering protection. The book is an essential read for therapists, caseworkers, cultural studies specialists, and anyone struggling to survive childhood abuse.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
Dangerous Families: An Introduction	1	(8)
Mattilda, a.k.a. Matt Bernstein Sycamore
LANGUAGE
gonna get my girl body back: this is a work in progress	9	(8)
leah lakshmi piepzna-samarasinha
Johnny	17	(12)
Mary Galvin
Not with the Buckle End of the Belt	29	(8)
John Gilgun
Dog Dreams	37	(6)
Jenie Pak
Body of Knowledge	43	(12)
Jim Van Buskirk
Dyslexic Process	55	(8)
Isadora Stern
population 1200	63	(4)
Daphne Gottlieb
the doctor's daughter	67	(2)
Daphne Gottlieb
Pelt	69	(8)
Daphne Gottlieb
MONSTERS
Hate May Not Be a Family Value, but Dysfunction? That's a Different Story	77	(4)
Kelli S. Dunham
Descent into Hell	81	(10)
Mikey Halliday
Kid Pirate in Suburbia	91	(10)
Kate Huh
Some Notes on Art and Architecture	101	(8)
Rob Stephenson
This Blood (Beaten Out of Me)	109	(8)
Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán
Contaminated	117	(10)
Veronica Monet
Drinking	127	(8)
Betsy Andrews
Did I Mention That	135	(8)
Adoh Fateel
My Sister's Shadow	143	(6)
Carol Glaser
Flooding	149	(6)
Leona Mae Page
ESCAPE
Escape: A Myth	155	(4)
Eli Clare
Weapons	159	(4)
Eli Clare
S.O.S.	163	(10)
Charm Cassell
Walls	173	(6)
Mattilda, a.k.a. Matt Bernstein Sycamore
Confessions of a Ghetto Princess	179	(12)
Siobhan Brooks
Those Who Can't Do, Write, or Daddy's Little Pornographer	191	(8)
Ian Philips
Absence	199	(16)
Olivia Wolf
Someday	215	(4)
Sunsong K. Firedancer
Bad Girl	219	(4)
Jessy Luanni Wolf
The Prime of My Life	223	(6)
Douglas A. Martin
About the Editor	229	(2)
Contributors	231