Synopsis
Alternately unsettling and affirming, devastating and delicious, The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You, is a new collection of essays on gender and identity by S. Bear Bergman that is irrevocably honest and endlessly illuminating. With humour and grace, these essays deal with issues from women's spaces to the old boys' network, from gay male bathhouses to lesbian potlucks, from being a child to preparing to have one; throughout, S. Bear Bergman shows us there are things you learn when you're visibly different from those around you - whether it's being transgressively gendered or readably queer. As a transmasculine person, Bergman keeps readers breathless and rapt in the freakshow tent long after the midway has gone dark, when the good hooch gets passed around and the best stories get told. Ze offers unique perspectives on issues that challenge, complicate, and confound the ''official stories'' about how gender and sexuality work.
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Review
If we could just clone Bergman's brain and manners, the world would be a much better place, indeed. This new collection of meditations, essays, and stories about living visibly queer is complex in beautifully simple ways.
--Helen Boyd, author of "My Husband Betty"--Helen Boyd "Helen Boyd "
Bear Bergman is an endearing, gallant, sexy fellow, the queer world's daddy, brother, and son. In "Nearest Exit", he's writing it all down for us, today's transgender experience. This is a landmark book for both queer theory and literature, written by an accomplished teller of tales. It's a book that will be cherished by generations of queer youth and adults alike. My heart overflows the brim with love and pride when I read his words.
--Kate Bornstein, author of "Hello, Cruel World"--Kate Bornstein "Kate Bornstein "
"Bear's poetry of butchness lets us see into facets of gender that usually aren't so transparent." --Carol Queen
"Following Kate Bornstein, Bergman explains how butches live outside of the inane gender binary, and how society responds to gender rebellion." --"Chill Magazine"
"Bear's poetry of butchness lets us see into facets of gender that usually aren't so transparent." --Carol Queen
About the Author
S. Bear Bergman is an activist, gender-jammer, performer, author of Butch Is A Noun (Suspect Thoughts), and creator of three solo theater shows (all of which won awards from the National LGBT Theatre Festival). Formerly of Massachusetts, ze recently relocated to Burlington, Ontario, Canada. Hir website is sbearbergman.com.
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