But, of course, simply because it is such a thrillingly pleasurable read, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars can’t help but also be a book for any thoughtful reader who chooses to pick it up.įierce Femmes and Notorious Liars A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir Kai Cheng Thom I do, however, believe in dangerous stories.” After a list of the many glamorous, dangerous stories that might be conjured, including those “that made your poor starving grandfather cross an entire ocean in search of the unbelievable riches someone once told him were waiting on the other side,” the first page ends with a question: “Where are those kinds of stories about trans girls like you and me?” This question strongly suggests who this book is written for, and its mile-a-minute engagement with its desired audience is one of its greatest strengths. It begins with the very first line: “I don’t believe in safe spaces. A dark fairy tale told by a “notorious liar.” It effortlessly changes the rules, cracking open a space of freedom, the kind of freedom that can only come from entering a game already in play and breaking each played-out rule with greater and more playful impunity. But when things go terribly wrong, she must find the truth within herself in order to stop the violence and discover what it really means to grow up and find your family.It would be hard to put it more concisely or accurately than Trish Salah does on the back cover: “The first lie is that this book is a memoir, the second is that it is not.” Another way to say it might be to use Audre Lorde’s evocative term “biomythography.” Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars by Kai Cheng Thom is a book that uses its warmhearted critique of the conventional tropes of the trans memoir as a way to reinvent those very tropes in fabulist Technicolor.
When one of their number is brutally murdered, our protagonist joins her sisters in forming a vigilante gang to fight back against the transphobes, violent johns, and cops that stalk the Street of Miracles. Under the wings of this fierce and fabulous flock, she blossoms into the woman she has always dreamed of being, with a little help from the unscrupulous Doctor Crocodile. Striking off on her own, she finds her true family in a group of larger-than-life trans femmes who make their home in a mysterious pleasure district known only as the Street of Miracles. Summary: "Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars : A Dangerous Trans Girl's Confabulous Memoir is a coming-of-age story about a young Asian trans girl, pathological liar, and kung-fu expert who runs away from her parents' abusive home in a rainy city called Gloom.
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