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by Robert Macfarlane, Jackie Morris
The Book of Birds is a field guide with a difference: It shows readers not just how to identify birds, but also how to identify with them. Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris conjure the unique spirit of nearly fifty once-common species: avocet to yellowhammer, kestrel to kingfisher, skylark to nightingale. In lyrical and incantatory essays, Macfarlane describes each bird's habits and habitats, their patterns of flight and patterns of song, how they hunt or fish or scavenge or gather, how they nest and raise their chicks, the myths that attend them, the threats that shadow them―and how their lives intersect with our own. On every page we encounter Morris's exhilarating artwork, painted from life in watercolor and gold leaf, and animated with an extraordinary attention to detail. The Book of Birds is a love letter to the thrilling variety and mysteries of birdlife, and a clarion call to halt the rapid depletion of our skies.
The Book of Birds is the latest collaboration between writer Robert Macfarlane and artist Jackie Morris, whose works have celebrated and taken inspiration from various aspects of nature. In their new book, the duo profile 49 different bird species, the vast majority of which are on red or amber conservation lists, which means they are significantly vulnerable to the threat of extinction.
The Book of Birds defies typical categorization. Each bird's entry is a short essay that reads like an extended prose poem, capturing the unique character and charm of the species and the sense of awe it evokes in the book's creators. For example, in his essay on the kingfisher, Macfarlane's playful use of language, imagery, and rhythm reflects the swift movements and vibrant colors of the enigmatic bird:
"A glimpse of Kingfisher is vision-quake, double-take; a strafe-straight rake across the lake that leaves neon streaks in its afterburn wake, sets sight ablaze. This is the on-fire zipwire of Kingfisher—a tracer round of pure hue. That ice-blue, that tangerine-orange: Kingfisher just shouldn't be here, in this muted land of browns and greens. Kingfisher must surely have slipped through a rift from rainforest or lagoon, from another map, from another zone; Kingfisher has somehow stolen all the colors of sunset and of river and made them his own."
Macfarlane's signature evocative metaphors run consistently throughout the book. The bobbing movements of a grey wagtail are "a skimmed stone on an iced-up lake," while the swooping flight of a kestrel is "the ice skater's crescent, the bend of a bow, the elliptical arc of an outer planet." In this way, Macfarlane brings a personal touch to what could otherwise have felt like a fairly standard field guide. He even weaves in small autobiographical details, sharing memories and encounters with certain species, which highlights the strength of humankind's bond with nature:
"I remember once, after the sudden death of someone close, staring stunned and bereft from the windows of a train on the way back home to bury him—and the only thing that moved my eye, the only thing that briefly lifted my heart from its terrible slump, was the sight of a flock of lapwings in a field starred with primrose, tumbling black and white through the air like a handful of dominoes."
In addition to the expressive descriptions and personal touch, the text also aims to inform; the book includes such facts as each bird's habitat, plumage, diet, behavior, and the specific plights they face. Sudden, stark interjections about the impact humans are having on birds hit that much harder because of how bluntly they contrast with the whimsy of the rest of the book.
"Humans speak with love of the Turtle Dove," Macfarlane writes, "but we slaughter them too. Egyptian carvings as old as Stonehenge show them netted and brained, and each year now—over Spain, France, Italy, Malta—some three million turtle doves are shredded by hunters' shot."
Macfarlane and Morris are based in the UK, and so the species featured in The Book of Birds are all native to their homeland, but the issues in these pages are relevant to bird species around the world—and indeed, many of these birds also have established populations in, or seasonally migrate to, other countries across the globe. To Macfarlane, this is one of the many lessons we can learn from how birds interact with each other and the world itself. "Migration makes a nonsense of our hard borders, our fortress nations," he writes. "Bird, migrating, is a citizen of nowhere, wandering proof of life's interrelation." Watching a murmuration of starlings move as one, he wonders: "Could we ever know how it feels to surrender self to group like this? No leader—just each bird changing course in response to its neighbor."
Morris's artwork, meanwhile, is the perfect companion to Macfarlane's prose. Her illustrations, painted from life using watercolor and gold leaf, are both strikingly detailed and artistically rich. Macfarlane describes the osprey as "both other-worldly and everyday," and this too feels like an apt summation of Morris's style; striking a delicate balance between lifelike detail and a subtle hint of fantastical wonder.
The Book of Birds is as much a celebration as it is a rallying cry. "It's not enough to love the song and forget the singers," Macfarlane warns, when discussing the complex beauty of birdsong. "How little we listen, though, and how rarely we hear." In this stunning collaboration, Macfarlane and Morris implore us to listen; they implore us to hear; they implore us to appreciate and protect the unique beauty of birds before it's too late.
Book reviewed by Callum McLaughlin
Writer Robert Macfarlane and artist Jackie Morris have established themselves as leading names in the UK and beyond when it comes to writing about nature. Their work aims to foster reverence for the world around us and inspire us to defend it.
The seed of their first collaboration was planted when Oxford University Press removed several nature-based words from its junior dictionary, citing they were no longer in everyday use among children. Morris was contacted by poet Laurence Rose, who asked her to sign a letter requesting the words be reinstated. Concerned that the proposed erasure of words like "bluebell," "acorn," "kingfisher," and "heron" could lead to a lack of appreciation for the natural world, Morris wanted to do more than simply sign a letter. She conceived of a book of paintings accompanied by a dictionary definition—one for each of the words at risk of being culled.
Morris was a big fan of Macfarlane's book, The Wild Places, and reached out to request he write a foreword. Macfarlane initially declined due to prior work commitments, but found that he couldn't shake the idea. However, instead of writing a foreword, he wanted to write a series of poems to accompany Morris's art, which would aim to "cast spells of language to summon the words back into common usage," as Morris described it.
After agreeing the book should be aimed at all ages, not just children, as Macfarlane originally proposed, the pair put together a proposal and took it to publisher Hamish Hamilton, who immediately greenlit the project. This resulted in The Lost Words, released in 2017. The book became a huge success and cultural phenomenon, garnering multiple awards and inspiring more than 20 successful public crowdfunding campaigns to get the book into schools, hospices, and care homes across the UK.
A sister book, The Lost Spells, followed in 2020, and soon led to Spell Songs, a collective of seven musicians (originally eight) who create music directly inspired by the work of Macfarlane and Morris. In 2022, the ensemble performed in a sell-out tour, a highly collaborative project that involved Morris joining the musicians on stage to paint live as they played, while Macfarlane's words were read aloud to the audience.
The Book of Birds is the duo's fourth major project together, combining Morris's enchanting watercolors with hybrid prose-poem-essays written by Macfarlane, celebrating the majesty of the bird species at risk of being lost at the hand of humans. The Spell Songs collective has announced a new album, In Thin Air, that is inspired by the book.
As for the future, Morris has already hinted at "the seed of a new idea" between her and Macfarlane, which she hopes "will take root and grow."
by Paul Rudnick
They are fierce patriots. They are licensed to kill. And they are really, really gay. Welcome to democracy's secret weapon, the Tuxedo Society.
When Andrew Birnbaum, a struggling actor making ends meet by working in a candle shop, gets invited to have dinner with the exclusive Tuxedo Society by his best friend, Brock, his life takes an unexpected turn. What seems like a group of wealthy socialites gathering for gossip and cocktails quickly spirals into a world of espionage, danger, and hilarity.
Andrew soon meets Reggie O'Malley, a Navy SEAL with a penchant for black tie, who recruits Andrew to join the society's covert mission to protect national security. Armed with gadgets like an inflatable life raft backpack, a yoga mat that doubles as an assault rifle, and, of course, an AMEX Black Card, Andrew quickly finds himself tackling spies, thwarting assassinations, and facing a host of unexpected threats in settings from the White House to the Vatican to the Summer Olympic Games.
The stakes escalate when Andrew and his comrades are sent on a jet-setting mission to uncover the truth about an ancient artifact. Along the way, they clash with oligarchs, crooked senators, and a smarmy televangelist with sinister plans for world domination.
Packed with Paul Rudnick's signature wit, The Tuxedo Society is a wild ride through decadence, danger, and unexpected heroism, as Andrew discovers that saving the world might just be the role he's been waiting for.
The Tuxedo Society, much like membership in the titular organization, isn't for just anybody. In the novel, membership prerequisites include being queer—the main character, Andrew, and most of his coterie are gay men; two top members are women married to each other; the Society has trans and nonbinary members—and having a special set of skills befitting any good movie spy. The characters that Andrew meets when he joins up with the Society ("the Tuxes") are talented in martial arts and digital hacking; they can speak multiple languages and blend into any surroundings. (Andrew, an aspiring actor, gets a foot in because of his accent skills and improv work.) For readers, The Tuxedo Society will most tickle fans of the endless pop culture discourse surrounding gay culture—not a casual RuPaul watcher, for example, but the viewer who binges every Drag Race talkback, podcast, and YouTube video essay.
At the beginning of the novel, Andrew is thrown into the deep end of the Tuxes after being invited to a fancy dinner that ends in the death of a foreign operative. It turns out the operative had been involved in a plot to target the First Lady, a former archaeologist who is interested in a quasi-mythical/magical artifact that other political factions are also seeking. Now a newly minted member, Andrew must pose as a White House florist, a hapless gym bro, an Olympic diving alternate, and a gem assayer over the course of the novel as the Tuxes track down the mythical gems all around the world. There is, of course, a romantic angle here, too, as Andrew attempts to balance his personal life with his rapidly intensifying "professional" life as an agent—he flirts with the Tuxes' tech expert, has a steamy date with a French millionaire, and even develops a crush on the Society's leader.
One of the best elements of The Tuxedo Society is the way author Paul Rudnick has cobbled together the villains of the book, each a delightfully campy pastiche of real-life evil—the long-time conservative senator who rails against homosexuality while cruising the seedier bars of D.C.; the televangelist-turned-politician whose untraceable money is funding his hate-filled campaign—that speaks to the modern anxieties and fears of LGBTQ+ people and their allies. Even the inception of the Tuxedo Society is grounded in real politics: the founder is a Navy SEAL who was dishonorably discharged under Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and has found a different way to serve his country outside the confines of military institutions. By rooting campy caricatures in recognizable reality, Rudnick delivers cutting observations of modern politics, all wrapped up in hilarious spoofs of every spy narrative imaginable.
Andrew is an actor and movie fanatic, and Rudnick floods his narration with pop culture references, at which, as a queer pop culture hound myself, I found myself alternately laughing aloud or groaning, depending on how cheesy they were. While some of the references might become outdated in short order, that's almost the beauty of the novel—it absolutely captures a right-here-and-now moment, when we're all hyper-fixated, for example, on the various young men of Bridgerton and their skin-tight breeches. Sometimes, though, the density of pop culture references can get a little overwhelming; on the same page, for example, Andrew says that a fight scene reminds him of "a Wolverine/Deadpool fracas based on a medieval tapestry," while the pose he jumps into is reminiscent of "the most traditional Charlie's Angels/bank heist pose." While the axiom "less is more" certainly does not apply to The Tuxedo Society, which revels in its ostentatious, over-the-top nature, these this-slash-that descriptors read more like a draft than the rest of the polished novel.
Perhaps the very best thing about The Tuxedo Society emerges in its most earnest moments—through Andrew's voice, Rudnick delivers prescient, self-reflective advice about growing up that readers, whether queer or straight, international superspy or regular couch potato, can take to heart. As stuck and unmoored as he feels, between his dead-end retail job and his endless unsuccessful auditions, the cold, hard reality is that he is an adult, and he needs to figure out his priorities if he ever wants to become the Meryl Streep of the espionage world (Streep is his favorite actor and his own personal measuring stick of success). "Maybe that's what a person's twenties are all about: not just obliterating your comfort zone, but…fend[ing] off a religious zealot," he muses. While the rest of us may step out of our comfort zones in somewhat less dangerous ways, Andrew's growth over the course of the novel is beautifully represented and, in a way, just as aspirational to readers as Meryl is to Andrew himself—Oscar or no Oscar.
Book reviewed by Maria Katsulos
In 2012, queer audiences the world over celebrated a bisexual James Bond reveal in Skyfall—when he is sexily threatened by a villain played by Javier Bardem, Daniel Craig's Bond retorts, "What makes you think this is my first time?" The homoerotic scene proved popular among viewers, although the studio had previously tried to cut that line out.
The Skyfall scene was the exception to the rule (and, indeed, more of a throwaway line than anything—queer fans aren't expecting a Bond Boy in lieu of a Bond Girl anytime soon); action and spy movies as a genre have historically been uber-masculine and heterosexual. However, these movies' emphasis on male bodies, power, and sex appeal lends them an interesting homoerotic subtext. For an early example, Gore Vidal has talked about his work as an uncredited screenwriter on Ben-Hur (1959); although it was never explicit in the film, Vidal, a queer man himself, claims that he wrote the main characters such that their relationship could be read as a pair of ex-lovers, rather than just masculine friends. Director Quentin Tarantino has said that Top Gun (1986), a male-dominated action movie, is a gay film, and it's not hard to see why—there's a sort of erotic framing of the male body, and the relationships between Maverick and his fellow pilots are full of meaningful glances and extended touches. And Sam Mendes, the director of Skyfall, said that despite James Bond's womanizing, "there's a huge homoerotic undertow in a lot of Bond movies."
But there are also action movies and TV shows that explicitly feature their protagonists' queerness—movies that The Tuxedo Society's protagonist Andrew, a gay actor and action movie fanatic, would surely love. Below are three titles that, like The Tuxedo Society, feature queer spies and/or secret agents:
D.E.B.S. (2004), directed by Angela Robinson
This "unapologetically camp, sapphic spy film" takes place at a clandestine paramilitary academy and features a lesbian forbidden romance between a new spy and the supervillain she's tasked with catching. The movie has been lauded for normalizing queerness, as it is much more focused on spoofing more serious spy films than in explaining the intricacies of queer women's identities and desire; as a Washington Post critic put it, the movie "accepts same-sex attraction as a norm, something not at all 'unusual' or strange but something so a part of the landscape it doesn't require comment."
Atomic Blonde (2017), directed by David Leitch
Nominally about a spy desperately searching for a list of covert agents about to be exposed in Berlin, only months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Atomic Blonde is perhaps best known now for popularizing the art of "bisexual lighting": the movie casts Charlize Theron's face in a mix of blues, pinks, and purples as she skulks around Berlin as Lorraine Broughton, the MI6 agent charged with retrieving the list of agents before the KGB can sell them out. Along the way, she becomes entangled with French agent Delphine Lasalle, leading to some spicy scenes that would fit right into the raunchy Tuxedo Society.
Q-Force (2021), created by Gabe Liedman
Q-Force may not have taken off when it released on Netflix in 2021, but the unapologetically queer and campy super-spy show draws from the same tropes and cultural touchstones that The Tuxedo Society so effectively spins into humor. This group of queer intelligence agents is an overlooked, underestimated outpost of the American Intelligence Agency (AIA) based in West Hollywood, who must learn to work with a new straight teammate to achieve the renown they deserve from their colleagues. Full of sassy comments, deep-cut references, and a robust cast of queer voice actors, Q-Force was highlighted as "splendidly queer" by The Spool, and the show's humor and tone complement The Tuxedo Society perfectly.
A silhouette of a man in front a computer, by Chris Yang.
by Tom Lin
When Saul Keng Hsiu and his wife, Mei Lee, move from China to the United States to take possession of a 160-acre homestead bequeathed to them by a distant relative, all they have are the possessions on their back, some hidden gold, and a pocketful of chrysanthemum seeds. After a rocky start and a long, harsh winter, the couple find themselves successfully raising chrysanthemums and livestock, and soon after, a daughter, Mara.
But when representatives from the US Army Corps of Engineers buy an acre of the Hsiu's farmland and begin building a missile silo, the inexplicable starts to occur: Mara can commune with the animals on the farm, Mei develops a hidden talent for augury, and the chrysanthemums become impervious to everything. When the Hsius learn that the project on their farm is an effort to make America's nuclear deterrent invulnerable, they see firsthand the long arm of power and empire.
In the years and generations that follow, increasingly impacted by the silo and its residue, the Hsius experience strange, wondrous, and tragic events on their farm. An ambitious epic and an ode to the beauty and glory of our connection to the natural world, Babylon, South Dakota upends the idea of "strangers in a strange land" to become a classic American story. It is a daring novel about how choices reverberate across generations and asks us what we owe to one another.
As soon as Hsiu Keng and his wife Lee Mei arrive on American soil, we see their struggle of wanting to fit in while also holding on to their Chinese roots. To assimilate, they change their names to Saul and Mei. Saul still has a packet of chrysanthemum seeds given to him by his mother, one of the few possessions the couple brings from their homeland apart from various gold objects and other necessities. Saul plants the seeds in their new land to "revive the kaleidoscope fields of his youth," and thus the flowers become a symbol of China that haunts the narrative persistently. The family is able to keep the farm afloat by selling the chrysanthemums, since their sturdy blossoms stay standing despite any hardship that comes to the land—also a symbol of the Hsius' defiance of the adversities they face in the new continent. And the adversities come quickly.
Shortly after the birth of their daughter Mara, two US government officials take advantage of the Hsius' poor English to buy an acre of their land to be used for a military facility, an event that catapults the plot. During and after the construction of the silo, strange happenings take place in the household: Mei has visions of the future, Mara speaks to animals, Saul has nightmares so severe that the only cure is for him to be in a sleep-like coma for months. Soon we are transported into a story full of alternate realities and magical absurdity.
But as enthralling as the many plot turns are, it is the characters who are the real heart of the novel, and Lin makes sure of this by narrating with painstaking detail the entire history of the family as if it were a biography rather than a traditional narrative arc. We see Saul and Mei grow old, Mara forms her own family, and then we even follow Mara's children as they too grow up on the farm. It is impossible not to develop an emotional connection with these characters as we spend an entire lifetime with them.
As the Hsius are Chinese immigrants, a great part of the story revolves around being Chinese in America. Apart from the symbolism of the chrysanthemums, there are multiple instances highlighting racial/cultural clashes and the longing for homeland. The novel alludes to famine and "the revolution" as being the causes for Mei and Saul moving continents—although not explicitly stated, we can assume "revolution" refers to the Communist Cultural Revolution in China in the 1960s because of the time period. In leaving China, they struggle with both wanting to hold on to their roots while at the same time interacting with, and being influenced by, a new culture. Inescapable, this question of identity and belonging is perhaps more essential to the plot than the silo itself. During Saul's months-long sleep, for example, Mei calls a doctor who, through a device inserted into Saul's ear, hears "the unmistakable sound of a hyacinth harvest, cicadas buzzing in the fields, the trickle of canals," thus deducing Saul is peacefully dreaming of his youth in China. When Mara's American friend Nancy teaches her about baptism and heaven, Mara decides to get herself and all the farm animals baptized despite her parents not being Christian. And years later, when Mara is an adult, her racist white father-in-law says to her son, "open your eyes wider, young man." Rather than a story about a military operation happening in an immigrant family's backyard, Babylon, South Dakota is the story of an immigrant family with a military operation happening in the background. In a book full of secret government experiments and spies and magic, it is fascinating how Lin manages to push all that to the side and concentrate on the immigrant experience first and foremost.
And maybe it is because I'm also an immigrant in the US that I personally love that. I come from a completely different culture from the Hsius: I'm from Argentina, and made the move from South America when I was a teen, with my family. And yet I share a lot of experiences with them, whether it's the feeling of never quite fitting in, or the yearning for my home country, or my accent being the first thing Americans notice when I speak English. Maybe it is easier for readers like me to connect with the Hsius. But I like to think that those who can't relate to the immigrant experience can at least see themselves in these characters in other ways: a father, mother, daughter, son. A family trying to fight against all odds to stay united and live their best life—what's a more relatable story than that?
Book reviewed by Daiana Gonzalez Videla
In Tom Lin's Babylon, South Dakota, Saul and Mei migrate from China to America with only some gold and a packet of chrysanthemum seeds. Once rooted in the soil, the flowers become almost a character in the story, taking over the land, refusing to be cut down or pruned, and surviving even the harshest of winters.
It was in China that the cultivation of these colorful flowers first started, before spreading to Japan, and later Europe. In fact, the first written mention of chrysanthemums comes from the Chinese poet Tao Yuanming, who in a collection of poems described the blossoms as symbols of persistence due to the chrysanthemum's late autumn blooming season, which is too cold for most other flowers to blossom. Thus begins a long history of the chrysanth's usage in Chinese art and literature, representing the overcoming of hardships and longevity. The flower is one of the "Four Gentlemen" of Chinese art—plum, orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum—all plants highly praised not just for their beauty, but also for the lessons and values they teach.
Of course, Tom Lin is no stranger to this history and is very on-the-nose about the symbolism of the flowers in Babylon, South Dakota. During the first year of the Hsius' life in the US, an unforgiving winter kills almost all the produce on their farm, but the chrysanthemums somehow survive: "And even as the world spun to a lacerating winter [Saul] clung tightly to a future carpeted by the flowers of his ancestors and his forsaken homeland." And "carpeted" is the perfect description, since soon Saul's twenty blossoms propagate into thousands. Just as the Hsiu family endures multiple challenges on the farm and yet remains grounded at the end, so do the chrysanths—again, following the theme of persistence. "But now, after so many years of drought, the flowers had become uncontrollable. No other plant could compete […], for the chrysanthemums grew so dense and quick that the seedlings of all other plants were destroyed in the darkness."
And yet the adversities do change the flowers, for in adapting to a life in America, they inadvertently let go of some of their Chinese roots, just as the Hsius assimilate to American culture in some ways. When Saul is in a coma, his daughter Mara, born and raised in the US, takes care of the chrysanthemums. In Saul's absence, the flowers lose their bright colors and turn white, growing ever stronger. Adaptability is, after all, a part of permanence and longevity.
Even today, the Double Ninth Festival (also known as Chong Yang) in China celebrates the chrysanthemum's history as a symbol of a long life, with flowers decorating the streets and people consuming various chrysanth teas, liquors, and cakes. All things considered, it is inconceivable to think of any other plant being so firmly rooted in the pages of Babylon, South Dakota.
Chrysanthemum indicum in Osaka, Japan, photo by KENPEI via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
by Emily St. James
Erica Skyberg is thirty-five years old, recently divorced―and trans. Not that she's told anyone yet. Mitchell, South Dakota, isn't exactly bursting with other trans women. Instead, she keeps to herself, teaching by day and directing community theater by night. That is, until Abigail Hawkes enters her orbit.
Abigail is seventeen, Mitchell High's resident political dissident and Only Trans Girl. It's a role she plays faultlessly, albeit a little reluctantly. She's also annoyed by the idea of spending her senior year secretly guiding her English teacher through her transition. But Abigail remembers the uncertainty―and loneliness―that comes with it. Besides, Erica isn't the only one struggling to shed the weight of others' expectations.
As their unlikely friendship evolves, it comes under the scrutiny of their community. And soon, both women―and those closest to them―are forced to ask: Who are we if we choose to hide ourselves? What happens once we disappear into the woodwork?
Detransition Baby meets Fleishman is in Trouble in this remarkable debut novel from an incisive contemporary voice. A story about the awkwardness of growing up and the greatest love story of all, that between us and our friends, Woodworking is a tonic for the moment and a celebration of womanhood in all its multifaceted joy.
Erica Skyberg is a popular English teacher and long-time community theater director, preparing to put on a production of Thornton Wilder's Our Town. She's more or less a pillar of the community, even if she prefers to keep a low profile. The only problem? No one in her town of Mitchell, South Dakota knows who Erica is. Everyone, including her students, the high school's conservative principal, and her ex-wife Constance, starring as Emily in the play, knows Erica by a different name, and sees her in the body of a man. But, as Erica has known on some level her whole life and has finally admitted within the past few years, she's actually a woman.
The year is 2016, contentious presidential and local election campaigns—focused in no small part on "culture wars" and bathroom bills—are being fiercely waged, and South Dakota is overwhelmingly conservative. Erica doesn't feel safe coming out to just anyone, but she knows exactly one other transgender person. The only issue? That person is her seventeen-year-old student Abigail.
Abigail is a recent transfer to Mitchell High, where she's always been out as a trans girl. She's lived with her older sister ever since her parents kicked her out after learning that she was secretly purchasing black-market hormones. Abigail has plenty of her own self-doubts and fantasizes about escaping somewhere like Minneapolis or Chicago, where she can "get my surgeries and change my name and never, ever tell anybody else again. I'll be like any other girl you pass on the street. You'd never know." Nevertheless, she comes off as unapologetically bold and confident in her own skin, unafraid to stick up for herself. Which is how—after she calls a group of classmates "fascist cunts" for ridiculing another girl's support for Hillary Clinton—she lands in after-school detention, which just happens to be supervised by Erica Skyberg.
Erica tentatively, almost desperately comes out to Abigail—who urges Erica to take tiny steps like painting her nails—and the two gradually embark on a supportive friendship. In many ways, their power dynamic is reversed—Erica is plagued by uncertainty and second-guesses her desire to eventually live as a woman, while Abigail provides pep talks and connections to resources. Mitchell is a small town, though, and the amount of time a teacher and student spend together outside of school, especially when they appear to be different genders, attracts attention and raises more than a few red flags. Erica is terrified about what will happen when she reveals her true self to the people in her life—but although it's anything but easy, doing so results in surprising new connections and an ever-widening network of support.
Author Emily St. James—a journalist and a television screenwriter—knows the world of which she writes, as a trans woman who, according to her author bio, "grew up...in the wilds of red-state America." The trans characters' attempts to find and build their own support network, as well as their genuine (and in many cases, fully justified) fears of coming out in an environment that is unfriendly at best and terrifyingly unsafe at worst, feel authentic, and although the trajectory for most characters is positive, that's definitely not the case for everyone. Erica's gradual, halting, and sometimes messy process of transitioning also rings true, a much bigger undertaking than "simply" publicly affirming your gender: "To say 'I'm a woman' is simply to lump yourself in with another four billion or so people. It's another thing altogether to figure out who you are, and that is where Erica keeps getting tripped up."
Abigail, too, has her journey—at the novel's opening she fantasizes about passing as a cis woman in a totally new setting (a phenomenon known in the trans community as "woodworking"). Once she encounters another woman whose decades-long life in the woodwork has locked her in fear, prevented from fully realizing and celebrating her new identity, she comes to embrace a different outlook, appreciating the need for trans people to acknowledge, recognize, and support one another. That spirit of affirmation suffuses the whole novel. Erica's first inkling that she might be trans is a joyful revelation: "She imagined, for the first time, that her body was not a tomb to die in but a foundation to build upon." Even though the novel fully acknowledges that many coming-out stories end in terror or tragedy, and even though the author's note soberingly spells out how life for trans people in America has actually become more dangerous since 2016, both Erica's and Abigail's stories point toward promising futures, ones that readers will fervently cheer for them to realize.
Book reviewed by Norah Piehl
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In Emily St. James's debut novel, Woodworking, the protagonist, Erica, must travel more than an hour each way, from Mitchell to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to attend a support group for transgender people. The group is small—seven people is "a good turnout"—but it's there, and over the course of the book, the group's existence gains importance for Erica and other trans characters. At a time when trans rights are increasingly threatened, it's important to remember that there are groups like Erica's, as well as larger, more established organizations serving transgender youth and adults throughout rural areas and in red states. Here are just a few doing this important work:
TransVisible Montana
Montana, the fourth largest state by area, is also one of the most rural. What's more, according to the ACLU, it's one of the states with the highest number of legislative proposals targeting LGBTQ people. TransVisible Montana, based in Missoula but connecting individuals to resources statewide, seeks to advocate for transgender, nonbinary, and Two-Spirit people through community education, resource sharing, and workshops and trainings for allies. As their website states, "Living in Montana, often in rural spaces, it can feel difficult to access affirming communities. TransVisible Montana seeks to broaden the network of knowledge within communities across Montana & encourage people to engage in their autonomy, share resources & honor our lived experiences."
The South Dakota Transformation Project
Woodworking is set in South Dakota; one of the most active nonprofit organizations serving transgender South Dakotans is the South Dakota Transformation Project. Transformation SD publishes a magazine, provides welcome kits and support groups for trans residents and their families, and educates communities in South Dakota and beyond about gender identity and expression. Their many other projects include Marty's Closet, a program that accepts new and gently used garments. Gender-diverse people can meet with a personal stylist and select, for free, a full week's worth of outfits that reflect their authentic selves and styles. They also operate South Dakota's only LGBTQ2S+ community center, the Prism Community Center in Sioux Falls, with virtual programs offered to residents statewide. They conduct public health research and, with their sister organization Transformation Project Advocacy Network, conduct state social and political action.
Trans Youth Emergency Project
A project of the Campaign for Southern Equality, the Trans Youth Emergency Project recognizes that many transgender youth and their families are facing increased barriers to receiving gender-affirming medical care and support. This is especially true for rural youth who might live far from LGBTQ+ community centers and other in-person resource networks. TYEP offers numerous educational and legal resources to families online and via a network of regional resources, as well as a grant program offering trans youth and their families up to $500 to cover "travel expenses, medication costs, and mental health or wellness needs."
TransRural Lives
Established with the help of state and national humanities funding, TransRural Lives is a "digital storytelling project exploring and celebrating the lives of transgender, Two-Spirit, and gender-diverse older adults who live in or have strong ties to rural areas and small towns in the Pacific Northwest." The stories collected on their website are illuminating for anyone seeking to better understand the experience of trans people in rural America, as well as for those seeking support and courage for their own journeys. They also hosted an inaugural, free-of-charge Trans Rural Elders Conference in Washington state in late 2024, with the goals of raising visibility and building networks.
Books Not Bans
According to a 2025 study released by PEN America, "in the 2023-2024 school year, there were more than 10,000 instances of banned books in public schools, affecting more than 4,000 unique titles." 36% of those titles included LGBTQ+ people or characters; of that number, 28% featured trans and/or genderqueer characters. This troubling phenomenon means that young readers in many school districts are having a harder time finding books that reflect their lived experience or that answer their questions about gender identity. San Francisco–based nonprofit Books Not Bans, founded in 2023, has sent more than 2100 brand-new banned and challenged books, many featuring LGBT characters, to organizations across the country, including "youth groups, high schools, rural Pride organizations, bookmobiles in rural areas, universities, drag story hours, youth centers, LGBT centers, queer book clubs, and community centers."
Those interested in supporting the work of organizations like these can find opportunities to donate or volunteer by visiting each organization's website. And for those seeking support wherever they live, this article has a good rundown of 100 different organizations supporting trans rights and trans people in all 50 states.
USA Trans Flag (Remixed)
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