Something that may shock and discredit you

Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Slate advice columnist Ortberg (Texts from Jane Eyre) brings the full force of his wit and literary depth to this genre-bending essay collection. Describing it as "memoir-adjacent," Ortberg intersperses searingly honest passages about his journey as a transgender man with laugh-out-loud funny literary pastiche. In "Lord Byron Has a Birthday and Takes His Leave," the poet histrionically threatens to die gloriously in Greece to avoid reaching the mortifying age of 40. Sir Gawain tries to escape the sexual hijinks cooked up by Lady Bertilak and the Green Knight in "Sir Gawain Just Wants to Leave Castle Make-Out." Amid the literary fun, Ortberg reflects upon gender identity. Finding the national conversation about transgender people too child-centric--he only realized he was one at age 30--Ortberg instead returned to the scriptures of his youth to find himself in "stories of transformation... already familiar" to him. In the most moving chapter, he drops the artifice of humor and lays bare his anguish at severing his relationship with his mother as her daughter, with the two finding solace in the story of Jacob and Esau--two brothers who make peace but not before Jacob changes his name, and thus identity, to Israel. Ortberg provides an often hilarious, sometimes discomfiting, but invariably honest account of one man's becoming. Agent: Kate McKean, Howard Morhaim Literary. (Feb.)

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Review by Library Journal Review

Written almost as a stream of consciousness, this genre-bending work by Slate columnist Ortberg (Texts from Jane Eyre) blends memoir, social commentary, and biblical exegesis in a series of essays that reflect an evolving sense of identity. Similar to his work as co-founder of The Toast, Ortberg's brief chapters here expand on topics serious and challenging, humorous and trivial. The author isn't afraid to be personal, especially when describing his struggle with external validation. He is at his best when relaying complicated feelings of self while exiting womanhood and navigating society's discomfort around trans men. These thoughts are interspersed with verses from the Bible and recollections on faith, on life as the son of a preacher, and on his participation in fandoms such as Star Trek. Interludes between chapters sometimes add nuance, other times lose momentum. As a result, the book periodically reads like a series of assorted thoughts. VERDICT Though it struggles to maintain cohesion at times, this account of a vulnerable life makes for contemplative reading. While fans of The Toast and pop culture will be drawn in, some may long for a more straightforward memoir.--Stephanie Sendaula, Library Journal

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

The co-founder of The Toast and Slate advice columnist demonstrates his impressive range in this new collection.In a delightful hybrid of a bookpart memoir, part collection of personal essays, part extended riff on pop cultureOrtberg (The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror, 2018, etc.) blends genres with expert facility. The author's many fans will instantly recognize his signature style with the title of the first chapter: "When You Were Younger and You Got Home Early and You Were the First One Home and No One Else Was Out on the Street, Did You Ever Worry That the Rapture Had Happened Without You? I Did." Those long sentences and goofy yet sharp sense of humor thread together Ortberg's playful takes on pop culture as he explores everything from House Hunters to Golden Girls to Lord Byron, Lacan, and Rilke. But what makes these wide-ranging essays work as a coherent collection are the author's poignant reflections on faith and gender. Since publishing his last book, Ortberg has come out as trans, and he offers breathtaking accounts of his process of coming to terms with his faith and his evolving relationships with the women in his life. The chapter about coming out to his mother, framed as a version of the biblical story of Jacob and Esau, is just as touching as a brief miniplay entitled, "The Matriarchs of Avonlea Begrudgingly Accept Your Transition." Throughout, Ortberg's writing is vulnerable but confident, specific but never narrow, literal and lyrical. The author is refreshingly unafraid of his own uncertainty, but he's always definitive where it counts: "Everyone will be reconciled through peace and pleasure who can possibly stand it. If you don't squeeze through the door at first, just wait patiently for Heaven to grind you into a shape that fits."You'll laugh, you'll cry, often both at once. Everyone should read this extraordinary book. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Interlude I: Chapter Titles from the On the Nose, Po-Faced Transmasculine Memoir I Am Trying Not to Write INTERLUDE I Chapter Titles from the On the Nose, Po-Faced Transmasculine Memoir I Am Trying Not to Write The first step in writing a book is not writing the wrong book. The fight against writing Son of a Preacher Man: Becoming Daniel Mallory Ortberg, My Journey Trekking Through the Transformative Expedition of Emergence, Voyaging Shiftward Into Form--An Odyssey in Two Sexes: Pilgrimage to Ladhood must be renewed every day. I am tempted always to make some force or organization outside of myself responsible for my own discomfort, to retroactively apply consistency to my sense of self as a child, to wax poetic about something in order to cover up uncertainty, to overshare in great detail out of fear that the details will be dragged out of me if I don't volunteer them first, and to lapse into cliché in order to get what I want as quickly as possible. Chapter One: An Outdoor Picnic Signifying the Successful Reintegration into the Family Unit, and a Flashback A description of the author, naked, at five, then again at twelve, then again at twenty, then again at thirty-two. Chapter Two: A Mostly Forced Poetic Description of My Hormone Delivery System This is my voice four seconds on T. This is my voice after saying, "This is my voice four seconds on T," so probably another seven seconds on T. This is the molecular structure of testosterone. This is a rhapsodic list of side effects. Chapter Three: My Male Privilege? My Male Privilege Seems So Tenuous But I'm also scared about my male privilege! Chapter Four: *Extreme Paula Cole Voice* Where Have All the Tomboys Gone? I'm sorry I lured the tomboys away to Boy Island. I am heartily sorry for my fault, my fault, my grievous fault, and I promise to make a good-faith error at restitution, returning at least five tomboys or their cash equivalent. Chapter Five: An Extensive Water-Based Metaphor Trans people: Always mesmerized, held, fascinated, and ultimately defeated by reflective surfaces. What's that, you say? A mirror of some kind? Hold it up to me so I might gaze at it with longing and dissatisfaction. Chapter Six: Have You Heard of ... ? Mermaids/Centaurs/Sirens/Sphinxes/Butterflies/Snakes/Werewolves/Any Other Cryptid? Well, You're Going to Hear About Them Now. They're like me!! Chapter Seven: Maiden, Mother, Crone, Mothman, Hans Moleman Room to work in a Golden Bough reference, maybe? Joseph Campbell, at the very least. Chapter Eight: Footnotes, for Legitimacy In which the author clearly feels obligated to badly summarize theory in order to offer a publicly defensible sense of self. Chapter Nine: An Exhaustive Recounting of Every Crush I Have Ever Had, Tagged and Exhibited, Followed by Six Pages of Layman's Chemistry In which the author has grown a thin, dreadful mustache, which the reader can intuitively sense through the page. Chapter Ten: What If Masculinity, but in a Soft, Sort-of-Drapey Jacket That'd be nice, right? Maybe in velvet; I don't know. It's soft now! We can all enjoy it this way. Chapter Eleven: In Which I Interview Every Man Who Refused to Walk Through a Door I Held Open for Them Before Transition and Inform Them that They Are Retroactively Gay Now If I'm honest--which I'm not--I did it for male attention. (Both the opening of doors and transition.) Chapter Twelve: "Liminal" In which the author refers to himself, alternately, as a "gender rebel," "smuggler," "real-life-sexual-crossing-guard," and, for some reason, a cyborg. Chapter Thirteen: In Which I Rescue Masculinity by Taking Up Weight Lifting, Heroically It's subversive and important when I do it. Excerpted from Something That May Shock and Discredit You by Daniel M. Lavery All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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