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A textured, sharply written memoir about coming of age in the fourth decade of one's life and embracing one's truest self in a world that demands gender fit in neat boxes.
From the outside, Oliver Radclyffe spent four decades living an immensely privileged, beautifully composed life. As the daughter of two well-to-do British parents and the wife of a handsome, successful man from an equally privileged family, Oliver played the parts expected of him. He checked off every box—marriage, children (four), a white-picket fence surrounding a stately home in Connecticut, and a golden retriever named Biscuit.
But beneath the shiny veneer, Oliver was desperately trying to stay afloat as he struggled to maintain a facade of normalcy—his hair was falling out in clumps, he couldn't eat, and his mood swings often brought him to tears. And then, on an otherwise unremarkable afternoon in September, Oliver Radclyffe woke up and realized the life of a trapped housewife was not one he was ever meant to live. In fact, Oliver had spent his entire life denying the deepest, truest parts of himself. In the wake of this realization, he began the challenging, messy journey toward self-acceptance and living a truer life, knowing he risked the life he'd built to do so.
That journey was fraught, as Oliver navigated leaving a marriage and reintroducing himself to his children. And despite the challenges he faced, Oliver realized there was no way for him to go back to the beautiful lie of his previous life. Not if he wanted to survive.
Frighten the Horses is a trans man's coming of age story, about a housewife who comes out as a lesbian and tentatively, at first, steps into the world of queerness. With growing courage and the support of his newfound community, Oliver is finally able to face the question of his gender identity and become the man he is supposed to be. The story of a flawed, fascinating, gorgeously queer man, Frighten the Horses introduces Oliver Radclyffe as a witty, arresting, unforgettable voice.
"This book is consistently frank, vulnerable, perspicacious, and insightful, covering an impressive variety of aspects of the transgender experience in intimate, lyrical language and dry, compassionate humor. The author's analysis of privilege is particularly refreshing, as is his description of transitioning as a parent. A stunning memoir about discovering one's identity late in life." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Radclyffe's riveting, moving memoir about his journey of self-discovery is a page-turner that reads like a novel." —Library Journal (starred review)
"Radclyffe's moving devotion to his children ('I didn't so much guide them as encourage them to guide themselves') lends the resonant coming-out narrative additional weight. Bolstered by poetic prose and offhanded candor, this story of late-in-life self-acceptance deserves a wide audience." —Publishers Weekly
"I often think that the entire purpose of a human life is to see if we can somehow get Free—if we can escape from the rules, expectations, and limitations of our families and our cultures in order to live an entirely different existence than the one that was assigned to us at birth. Frighten the Horses is the inspiring true story of one man's extraordinary journey of escape from the wrong marriage, the wrong gender, the wrong life, in order to become who he was always meant to be. This book is as sharp as razors, but it also pulses with a passionate, desperate, human urgency for truth and liberation. I am deeply grateful to have read it, and my hope is that Oliver's story will free many others, as well." —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of City of Girls
"Wise, generous, and fierce, Frighten the Horses is about more than a change of gender; it's about the perilous process of accepting the self, in all its gnarly, glorious complexity. Oliver Radclyffe finds more than manhood on his inspiring journey; what he finds, in the end, is his humanity." —Jennifer Finney Boylan, author of She's Not There, and co-author of Mad Honey
"The finest literary telling of the experience of gender transition that I've ever read. It's a terrific, expansive story because the focus of this warm-hearted man always returns to his children. He's simply a wonderful parent, and that's what keeps the reader turning the pages." —Kate Bornstein, author of Gender Outlaw
This information about Frighten the Horses was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Oliver Radclyffe is part of the new wave of transgender writers unafraid to address the complex nuances of transition, examining the places where gender identity, sexual orientation, feminist allegiance, social class, and family history overlap. His work has appeared in The New York Times and Electric Literature, and he recently published Adult Human Male, a monograph with Unbound Edition Press on the trans experience under the cisgender gaze. He currently lives on the Connecticut coast, where he is raising his four children.
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