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A darkly comic, introspective debut collection that looks beneath the surface of trans life in 2010s Seattle.
What to do when starting testosterone unlocks a newfound desire for men? How to respond when your boss's boss asks if you've had "the surgery" and then requests you talk her niece out of transitioning? What obligation do you have to intervene in the faltering mental health of the baby trans drug dealer you've met only once while tripping on the acid he sold you?
The young transmasculine characters in Crawl navigate these and other questions in the dive bars, bathhouses, parks, workplaces, music venues, beaches, and college campuses of 2010s Seattle. Max Delsohn's stories―by turns exuberant, heartfelt, tragic, and wry―portray the pleasures and pains of sex and romance, the possibilities and ambivalences of gender expression, and the joys and failures of community in a city and a time that has branded itself a radical queer utopia but proves much more complicated in reality.
"This is a no-skips collection, but perhaps Delsohn's most ambitious and moving work is the closer, 'Same Old,' which follows 30-year-old Simon's attempt to help the vulnerable, younger trans man who sold him acid—all while tripping. Attempts and embarrassments, workaday triumphs and acts of kindness—Delsohn brings all this and more to shimmering." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[D]ryly humorous and poignant...These exacting stories seethe with blunt honesty." —Publishers Weekly
"Adventurous, witty, heartfelt, and very moving, Crawl takes us on a journey through the land of longing and reminds us, in the way that only literature can, that we all live in that land; that 'identity' has to do with the particular, lovely flavor of our longing, and of that essential pursuit called: trying to be one's true self. Max Delsohn, a wildly talented, very bold, very funny new writer, has the rare gift of knowing how to (wryly) celebrate life, love, and desire in all their forms." ―George Saunders, author of Liberation Day
"A horny, hilarious, bittersweet romp through millennial transmasc malaise―Crawl aches and charms in turn. Max Delsohn is a writer to watch." ―Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House
"Max Delsohn has a poet's sense of yearning, a stand-up's sense of timing, and a 3 a.m. hookup's desperate frankness about sex―all of which combine to make Crawl one of my favorite story collections of the past few years." ―Torrey Peters, author of Stag Dance
This information about Crawl 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.
Max Delsohn's writing appears in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, VICE, Joyland, The Rumpus, and Triangle House, among other places. He earned an MFA from Syracuse University. He lives in Los Angeles.
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