Finished A Queer and Pleasant Danger by Kate Bornstein. I received a copy from the publisher at BEA. This is a memoir.
I’m pretty sure that Kate Bornstein has led the world’s most fascinating life, and this memoir would certainly bear that theory out.
Kate was born Albert Bornstein. This book discusses her life as a sweet Jewish boy to life as a Scientologist man to her current life as a lesbian. It’s a complete cliche, but Kate pulls no punches. She is completely honest about her life (so be sure you want to hear it) and is just as honest about transgender issues. Kate’s sort of transcended gender at this point. She doesn’t really feel like a woman, she said, but she’s definitely not a man, either.
I first heard about Kate Bornstein in my sociology of gender class where we (of course) read her book Gender Outlaw. I think my copy is still at my mom’s house and now I really want to re-read it.
I wish that I had stayed for her signing at BEA but I was incredibly sore and tired and feeling a little sick…but more than that, I had this image in my head of re-enacting that scene in Truth or Dare where Kevin Costner meets Madonna and is like, “I think your songs are real neat,” and she makes fun of him. Because I think Kate Bornstein is awesome and I am so boring that I would probably stammer something along the lines of “I think your books are real neat” and of course she’d make fun of me (as you do with someone who uses the phrase “real neat” and then I would be sad.
(Note: she later talked to me on Twitter and I told my soc professor and she was jealous. I did not say “real neat.”)
I realize this review is babble-y and I could say that that’s a deliberate homage to Bornstein’s writing style and how it’s all conversational and fun, but really? She scatters my thoughts because she is freaking AWESOME.
Highly recommended.
