Ep 707 - Stone Butch Blues, by Leslie Feinberg

Summary

Podcast Summary: Overdue – Ep 707: Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

Introduction In Episode 707 of Overdue, hosted by Andrew and Craig from Headgum, the duo delves into Leslie Feinberg's seminal novel, Stone Butch Blues. Released on June 16, 2025, this episode aims to unpack the novel's intricate themes, character development, and its enduring impact on LGBTQ+ literature.

Hosts' Personal Insights and Context [03:00 – 07:08] The episode begins with Andrew and Craig exchanging personal anecdotes, celebrating Father's Day, and sharing their experiences related to the day. Craig introduces the week's book, Stone Butch Blues, highlighting its cultural significance and Feinberg's multifaceted identity:

Craig [07:08]: "Feinberg, who was born in 1949 and passed away in 2014, identified as an anti-racist white working-class, secular, Jewish, transgender, lesbian, female, revolutionary communist."

Andrew emphasizes the novel's longevity and cultural footprint, noting its 30-year legacy and its role in addressing enduring social issues.

Leslie Feinberg’s Background and Stone Butch Blues [07:08 – 10:45] The hosts provide a comprehensive overview of Leslie Feinberg's life and works. Feinberg, an activist and writer, infused her personal experiences into Stone Butch Blues, a novel that mirrors her journey as a masculine-presenting lesbian in Buffalo, New York. They discuss Feinberg's diverse career—from dishwasher to ASL interpreter—and her involvement with the Workers World Party.

Andrew highlights Feinberg's commitment to making her work accessible:

Andrew [10:10]: "She makes the book itself free, though it's not like sitting out on most store bookshelves most of the time."

Craig adds context about Feinberg's dedication to preserving the novel's integrity, ensuring it remains a truthful representation of her experiences and ideologies.

Publication History and Accessibility [10:45 – 20:38] The conversation shifts to the novel's publication journey. Initially released by Firebrand Books in 1993, Stone Butch Blues faced challenges with small feminist and queer presses folding, complicating its availability. Feinberg eventually reclaimed the rights in 2012, ensuring the novel's continued accessibility through free online versions and print-on-demand options. Andrew underscores the importance of Feinberg's choice to prioritize the ideas within her work over personal fame:

Andrew [08:23]: "She was focused on keeping the ideas centered rather than the personalities."

Craig mentions Feinberg's posthumous recognition:

Craig [19:18]: "Feinberg was among the 50 inaugural honorees for the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor at the Stonewall National Monument that was dedicated in 2019."

Content Warnings and Themes [20:01 – 33:38] Andrew shares the novel's opening reader note, which serves as a content warning about themes of rape and violence, emphasizing their non-gratuitous nature:

Craig [20:09]: "This is just a content warning, essentially."

The hosts delve into Feinberg's exploration of transgender terminology, highlighting how the novel argues against the narrowing of "gender" to mean only biological sex. Andrew relates this to contemporary discussions around transgender identities, noting:

Andrew [20:38]: "Feinberg makes a case for it being much more expansive than that. And I think this is what many actual trans people understand the word to mean."

Narrative and Character Analysis [33:38 – 55:43] Craig provides a detailed plot summary of Stone Butch Blues, focusing on the protagonist, Jess Goldberg. The novel chronicles Jess's journey from a young butch woman facing discrimination to her experiences within various LGBTQ+ communities and labor movements in Buffalo during the mid-20th century.

Key themes discussed include:

• Identity and Community: Jess's struggle to find her place within both the queer community and the broader society.

  Craig [36:52]: "She finds her way into this... gets taken in as what they call a baby, butch."

• Violence and Trauma: The recurrent police raids on LGBTQ+ spaces and their impact on Jess and her relationships.

  Craig [39:26]: "Everybody's being totally chill about all of it. No, it's pretty terrible."

• Labor and Capitalism: Jess's involvement in unionization efforts and the intersectionality of class, gender, and sexual identities.

  Craig [48:43]: "She's confronting how homophobia, transphobia, racism... are wielded by classist and capitalist forces."

• Passing and Exile: Jess's decision to pass as male to navigate societal dangers, leading to feelings of isolation and alienation.

  Craig [51:57]: "Jess decides to pass as male... feels safer in public, but way more alone and adrift."

Notable Quote:

Craig [36:55]: "It's important, like, she has come here, she is given words to help her, you know, even just talk to herself about her lived experience."

Hope Amidst Struggle [55:43 – 67:03] Despite the novel's harrowing events, Craig and Andrew discuss the underlying message of hope. They interpret the novel as a testament to resilience and the enduring fight for a more just world.

Craig shares a poignant excerpt from the novel's conclusion:

Craig [62:34]: "Imagine a world worth living in, a world worth fighting for... you are experiencing the impact of what we in the movement take a stand on and fight for today."

Andrew reflects on the balance between hardship and hope:

Andrew [55:21]: "There's a lot of finding hope amidst a situation that is clearly not ideal."

Conclusion and Recommendations [67:03 – 69:24] As the episode wraps up, Craig and Andrew emphasize the importance of reading Stone Butch Blues for its profound exploration of identity, community, and resistance. They acknowledge the novel's challenging content but advocate for its significance in understanding LGBTQ+ history and struggles.

Andrew Teases Next Episode:

Andrew [68:28]: "Next week we are both reading American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis."

Craig concludes with final thoughts:

Craig [67:15]: "Teach jerks a lesson. That's what I've learned."

Final Remarks Craig invites listeners to engage with the podcast by recommending other works or connecting via email and social media. They also promote their website, Patreon, and upcoming projects, encouraging continued support and interaction.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Craig [07:08]: "Feinberg, who was born in 1949 and passed away in 2014, identified as an anti-racist white working-class, secular, Jewish, transgender, lesbian, female, revolutionary communist."
• Andrew [10:10]: "She makes the book itself free, though it's not like sitting out on most store bookshelves most of the time."
• Craig [20:09]: "This is just a content warning, essentially."
• Andrew [20:38]: "Feinberg makes a case for it being much more expansive than that..."
• Craig [36:55]: "It's important, like, she has come here, she is given words to help her..."
• Craig [62:34]: "Imagine a world worth living in, a world worth fighting for..."

Recommendation Stone Butch Blues is a powerful narrative that intertwines personal struggle with broader social movements. Andrew and Craig commend the novel for its raw portrayal of identity and resilience, making it a must-read for those seeking depth and historical context in LGBTQ+ literature.

For more insights and updates, visit overduepodcast.com.

Transcript

[Andrew]

This is a headgun podcast.

[Craig]

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[Andrew]

What doesn't belong in my epic summer plans?

[Craig]

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[Andrew]

They're getting burned by their old wireless bills. Can't be friends with them.

[Craig]

You're going to be chilling, literally and financially.

[Andrew]

Craig, you've told me that I should switch to Mint Mobile, but surprise, I switched to Mint Mobile many years ago.

[Craig]

You pull this rug out from under me every time.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I have been a Mint Mobile customer for a long time. It is like half of what we were paying on the carrier that we were on previously for service that is indistinguishable. Even better in a lot of ways because I do not get burned with data overages anymore. I just. I have as much data as I want and it's super cheap to get it. Yeah, it's pretty good.

[Craig]

You can use your own phone with any min Mobile plan and bring your phone number, all your friends, all your. All your remaining friends.

[Andrew]

Yeah. With nobody, nobody knew on all my group texts that I had switched because I still had really good connectivity, but my number was the same.

[Craig]

I like that. So. So this year, skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank. Get your summer savings and shop premium wireless [e-mail] overdue. That's mintmobile.com overdue. There's an upfront payment of $45 for three months of a five gigabyte plan required. It's equivalent to $15 a month new customer offer for first three months only. Then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. Please see Mint Mobile for details. While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well told tale, they will not shy away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary. Plus, these are books you should have read by now. Hey everybody. Welcome to Overdue. It's a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name Is Craig.

[Andrew]

My name is Andrew.

[Craig]

Happy Father's Day.

[Andrew]

Yeah, happy Father's Day. Father's recording this on Father's Day. Father's Day for another hour and 19 minutes.

[Craig]

Dads, Daddy's.

[Andrew]

How's your father say?

[Craig]

It was fine. My son was very tired. He came into the weekend tired and then slept poorly and then fell asleep during a baseball game. Like at the baseball game.

[Andrew]

Nice. I bet he was not the only one there sleeping who did that.

[Craig]

Yeah, there were lots of other babies there, but he's a little, you know.

[Andrew]

I mean, I'm sure that there are some people who are not babies there who are doing it too. I'm saying baseball, baseball, like minute to minute is kind of a sleepy.

[Craig]

It was a high scoring baseball game. The Phillies did a job. But no, it was, it was kind of a sleepy, sleepy Father's Day. How about you?

[Andrew]

Zeus and I have set up a convention where the thing that you do for Mother's Day or Father's Day is just to like, generally have to do less of the thing that you're being celebrated for. So I got to sleep in a bunch and I used that time to read American Psycho. So kind of a wash in terms of like vibe. And then we, I mean it was, it was kind of was one of those. Because we ran around a bunch yesterday. So for today it was one of those days where he did not change out of his jammies all day.

[Craig]

Oh, sure.

[Andrew]

We finished the movie Cars.

[Craig]

Yeah, you never have to watch it again, ever.

[Andrew]

His favorite car is Sally, the girl 1. The main girl car.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

And then his second favorite car is Mater. And then three quarters of the way through the movie he asked what the name of the main red car Lightning McQueen is. So like, I don't know. I don't know how much he was picking up, but he seemed to like it. He was wrapped.

[Craig]

Yeah, sure.

[Andrew]

Favorite Pixar movie. But it's okay.

[Craig]

Okay. I think that first one is not.

[Andrew]

Going to talk about. Yeah, it's fine.

[Craig]

No, you don't want to go off.

[Andrew]

Many questions that it raises.

[Craig]

No, we don't need to. We don't. Just know that there are questions raised by the movie Cars.

[Andrew]

Like you never, you never see a car's door open. But at one point somebody does acknowledge that leather seats exist and that they know about them. So what's in there?

[Craig]

Also, where'd the leather come from? Aren't the cows, trucks, the tractors? Huh? This is our book.

[Andrew]

One of us, one of us reads a book that we've never read before and tells the other person about it and we all get to listen along and learn more about a book or the movie Cars. Many people at many different times have said I haven't some time at a party, somebody brought up a book and I was able to talk about it because of your podcast, even though I'd never read the book. And that's roughly the level of fluency that we're aiming to impart upon listeners as part of this project. Craig, what did you read this week?

[Craig]

I read Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg and honestly, I, I aspire to that level of like, you know, fluency. If, if at the very least this episode is like, hey, maybe go check out this book. Like, I will feel like I have succeeded. You know, I feel like we've.

[Andrew]

Is there not an email in our inbox somewhere? Like we got somebody some money on Jeopardy once.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Right.

[Craig]

Mm.

[Andrew]

Okay. So if, if we can, if we can answer sort of like a mid dollar Jeopardy question for you with our podcast, that's. That's all I'm here for.

[Craig]

I don't think we're helping you with a daily double. I don't think we're helping you with Final Jeopardy, but pretty much anything else.

[Andrew]

But if you're just trying to run the board in like the beginning, middle of the game and build some momentum, like, that's where we are.

[Craig]

Yeah, we're here to help. I've never read, prior to this recording, I've never read Stone Butch Blues before. I was not familiar with Feinberg, but it was a book that had been recommended to me, had come up on a few lists as I was looking for books to cover for the show and it seemed pretty interesting. You. Have you read this book? You've not read this book, Andrew?

[Andrew]

I've never read the book, no.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

All right. It does seem to have like a good, like it's 30 years, like more than 30 years old. Most.

[Craig]

A lot of the three it was published. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Yes. A lot of the articles I was reading was talking about it as like A. The 30 year anniversary had just passed. But it seems like it has a big, you know, a good, A good cultural footprint isn't. Is an earlyish work to talk about a lot of the issues that it talks about and it's pretty seminal in a lot of ways. So, yeah, excited to get into it.

[Craig]

Feinberg, who was born in 1949 and passed away in 2014 right around just after the 20th anniversary edition of the. Of the book, identified as an anti racist white working Class, secular, Jewish, transgender, lesbian, female, revolutionary communist. I've seen that sequence of identities specifically named in multiple places. So I did want to make sure we put it up front.

[Andrew]

I think her, like, her dying words. And, you know, this is. This is. I don't know, I want to leave some, like, cool dying words with a few people so that they know what to say. My dying words are. My actual dying words were, like, not cool or noteworthy anymore anyway. But she does mention being a revolutionary communist in her dying words. Yeah, that's probably at least as popularly remembered.

[Craig]

Yes. I mean, your dying words might be something like, do you. Okay, you don't have to do it on air right now. You definitely let me know what you want them to be. But, like, what if it was just you going like, Ray. Like, what if it was just.

[Andrew]

What if it was me doing a Ray, Ray Romano be saying his own name as my last name in the mirror, going.

[Craig]

That's the kind of thing that would, like, fall out of your head, like, towards the end, I think.

[Andrew]

I guess it'd be the last thing, one of the last things in there. Probably first in last.

[Craig]

You'd be looking to make people laugh at the end. That's.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I would love that. That's all I would be thinking about is like, how can I. How can I go out on a laugh?

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

My last words will be like, I wish I hadn't spent so much time being so cool.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Or something.

[Craig]

That's true.

[Andrew]

Just burnish my.

[Craig]

I'll put that on your tombstone for you, Leslie Feinberg.

[Andrew]

We're gonna use she. Her pronouns for her throughout the episode. She basically made it clear that she was fine with whatever depending on, like, context and audience, and basically said, I've, you know, I've had the people use the right pronouns and be a big jerk and use the wrong pronouns and be respectful. So, like, it's not. Did not seem like it was super important to her. She says, for me, pronouns are always placed within context. I am female bodied. I'm a bush lesbian, a transgender lesbian. Referring to me as she. Her is appropriate, particularly in a non trans setting in which referring to me as he would appear to resolve the social contradiction between my birth, sex and gender expression and render my transgender expression invisible. I like the gender neutral pronoun Z, her H I, R. Is that meant to be pronounced a different way? I'm not sure.

[Craig]

I. I don't think so.

[Andrew]

Okay. Because it makes it impossible to hold on to gender, sex, sexuality, assumptions about a person you're about to Meet or you've just met. And in an all trans setting, referring to me as he him honors my gender expression in the same way that referring to my sister drag queens as she her does.

[Craig]

Her. Her could also be pronounced here. H I R could be.

[Andrew]

Leslie Feinberg is born in Kansas City and raised in Buffalo, New York. She worked lots of odd jobs, sort of like, you know, working class jobs that helped it inform parts of Blues, which is very much like an intersectional sort of work.

[Craig]

Very much so.

[Andrew]

Talk about a bunch. Worked at a PVC pipe factory, a book bindery. She was a dishwasher. She cleaned cargo ships. She was an ASL interpreter. She was a member of the Workers World Party, helped edit the Workers World newspaper and became its managing editor. She did that for many years. Stonebush Blues is her first novel. Definitely it's referred to as a novel. She draws on her heard lived experience a lot, especially in, you know, as a, like a masculine presenting lesbian in Buffalo, New York. Like that's, that's a big part of it, but it is, yeah, it is a novel. Drag King Dreams, her next novel followed in 2006. She had several works of nonfiction listed, but the most significant is probably Transgender Warriors Making History From Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman, which was published in 1996. And it's like, at a very, very high level. Its project was to like, make the case for the existence of trans people throughout history and like put them in context.

[Craig]

There's a few.

[Andrew]

And make it clear that it's not just like, oh, this is some new trendy thing that people just discovered. It's a thing that's always existed and we're, you know.

[Craig]

Yeah, there's a. There's a bit in the In Stone Butch Blues where the main character, Jess Goldberg, is the parts of the biography, if that is infusing the fiction. Like, I think by the 70s, Feinberg was like, pretty ensconced in her work with the Workers World Party and like, worked on a big anti racist demonstration in Boston and things like that. And Jess in the novel is definitely much older by the time, or at least I think is old, supposed to be older than Feinberg was by the time she is like politically, fully politically activated as a, as an activist and organizer. But there are some spots where like, people are giving her, like works of seminal political theory or important novels or treatises. And she. And one of the things that she comes to is this understanding that like, oh, this level of bigotry and discrimination and marginalization is not innate to human Society, at least as I experience it. People like me throughout history have been treated differently, even if it was a while ago. And so when I was reading about transgender warriors, it definitely felt like, oh, that's the book that this character could go on to write. But Feinberg wrote it, you know, knew that it was something she was probably working on as she's writing Stone Butch Blues.

[Andrew]

And Feinberg, I do, I believe, did go through sections of her life where she did openly identify as a man just for, like, safety reasons.

[Craig]

Part of this book. Yep.

[Andrew]

So, yeah, that's all. That's all part of this, too. This book comes out in 1993, like we talked about. It's a Lambda Literary Award finalist in the lesbian fiction category. In 1994, it won the 1994 version of what would become the Stonewall Book.

[Craig]

Award from the American Library Association. Yep.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And yeah, if so. So like I mentioned, it does touch on her politics as a communist, her experiences as a labor organizer, if you've ever heard. This happens a lot with the, like, hardcore labor organizers who I talk to, and usually it is the fieriest people who are involved at the earliest stages of organizing, but always expressing that, like, all of these struggles are interconnected. This is a case in point for that, I think it is available. So it has a kind of a complicated publication history. It initially comes out on this small feminist press called Firebrand books. Then in 2003, it comes out again as like a 20th anniversary edition on Allison Books.

[Craig]

10Th anniversary edition, 2003.

[Andrew]

Yes. Sorry, I keep. I keep messing my. My brain. My brain has. You can tell how long ago.

[Craig]

I'm 30 or 40 years old.

[Andrew]

I am 30 or 40 years old, but my brain has trou coping. Like how long ago the 90s were.

[Craig]

Yep. No, no, no. I'm with you. I'm with you.

[Andrew]

And where the jump in the millennium is. Anyway, 10th anniversary edition, Alison Books, 2003. Allison Books files for bankruptcy. Feinberg is only able to win the rights to her book back in 2012, two years before she died. She died of like. Of complications related to, like, tick related illnesses, Lyme disease, other illnesses, which is kind of wild.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

There's a 2020 New York Public Library piece by Hal Shrive that notes that the, the publication history and in general, just this tendency of small, like, feminist and queer presses to like, fold and leave a bunch of the books that they published in limbo. Like, it can make physical copies harder for libraries and bookstores to stock. Feinberg made a version of the book free. I Don't know what version of it that you read, but she has a free, free version available on her website. And then there's like a print for cost thing where you can order a physical copy if you really want one. But the. So she. She makes the book itself free, though it's not like sitting out on most store bookshelves most of the time. She also wrote, she granted no rights for adaptations or derivative works. She does not give permission for Stonebush Blues quote to be rewritten based on someone else's imagination. The sight into in a 2018 piece by Trish Bendix titled the Fight Over Leslie Feinberg, Stonebush Blues, that goes a little into, like, the rights issues and the legal battle. Talks about somebody just trying to do a movie adaptation and this person saying, oh, well, I marched with Leslie Feinberg. And so it's fine that I'm making this movie. Even though she explicitly said that she didn't want a movie to be made. The fact that it's 2025 and this movie still doesn't exist probably means that it's not going anywhere. But it's, you know, that that piece, that into piece is very long and detailed and has some more stuff on that. But yeah. And just in general, Feinberg, she wanted her ideas to. To be free and to outlive her. And then she and her partner who died in 2023, they both just like, did not want to talk about Feinberg a ton. Like, she didn't. She didn't want to be doing. She, her partner, didn't want to be out doing a bunch of interviews about.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Lizzie Feinberg.

[Craig]

Yep. Yep. This is a mini Bruce Pratt who was a writer and poet.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

As well. Yeah.

[Andrew]

And so it seems just a very focused on keeping the ideas centered rather than like the personalities, I think, which is interesting.

[Craig]

Yeah. So the edition I read was an epub edition that was converted from a PDF version on the Internet Archive, and it is the 20th anniversary edition.

[Andrew]

That Feinberg PDF is probably what she originally put out. And then the ebook is just for convenience because reading a PDF on a Kindle is a pain in the butt.

[Craig]

Terrible. It has no ISBN number. It has a lot of. In the back, a number of notes that Feinberg wrote for various translation editions, including the Chinese translation, where she's like, very kind of hoping that it will be received as a work about oppression to. To anyone who might be oppressed. There's also, like, there's notes like you mentioned about her not wanting any adaptations to exist. There's also a note about, like, whether or not she's done any revision or copy editing or, you know, and largely that, like, as they approach the 20th anniversary edition, there were some things that were, you know, typos or whatever. And she worked, you know, she was pretty sick at that point. So she worked with her partner and a proofreader to fix it up. And then she says this. I've always approached it editing and copy editing and revision my own work and that of others, with great respect for the original text. I brought that same ethic to this new edition of Stone Butch Blues. If it wasn't broken, I didn't fix it. I'm not of the school of filmmaker George Lucas, who went back to Star wars and changed who shot first. The poet writer who mostly sums up for me the guiding ethics is Audre Lorde, who said a revision should make the work more of what it needs to be in order to do the emotional work it was intended to do. So, yes, Lord above Lucas, says Feinberg1cool.

[Andrew]

Yeah, like back to the topic of last words and stuff. I do. I would be okay with it being known that I died mad about something. Star Wars. Really? Yeah, that would be fine.

[Craig]

Feinberg was among the 50 inaugural honorees for the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor at the Stonewall National Monument that was dedicated in 2019. Worth noting there. And yeah, I think that's it. I will, you know, before the break, I'll just share the opening reader note from the novel for folks in case it changes their listening or reading behavior.

[Andrew]

Is this going to be the typing these words as junior 2003 surges with pride thing? Or is that a different.

[Craig]

No, this is different note that I found. Okay, okay.

[Andrew]

I still have. I still have a little bit.

[Craig]

Okay, sure. This is just a content warning, essentially. Dear reader, I want to let you know that Stone Butch Blues is an anti oppression, slash oppressions, plural novel. As a result, it contains scenes of rape and other violence. None of this violence is gratuitous or salacious. Leslie. I probably will not read much of these passages in any great detail, but it is a part of the book. And if you're going to go read the book, you should know about it.

[Andrew]

Okay, two things. First, Feinberg talking about the terminology of transgender, which I just, I want to bring up because. Oh, yeah, I think right now, in this moment in 2025, where so much like the American right and the like the. The right in the UK are. I mean, it's everywhere. But like, those are two places where it's particularly pervasive. And bad right now is. Is bringing up trans people and talking about. Just trying to. To bring to mind, like, images of, like, people mutilating the genitals of children or whatever, like, focusing on people who change their bodies in some way to, like, match what they're. What they want their gender expression to be. And Feinberg makes a case for it being much more expansive than that. And I think this is what actual, like many actual trans people understand the word to mean. But she says the use of the word transgender has changed over the two decades since I wrote stonebush Blues. Since that time, the term gender has increasingly been used to mean the sexes rather than gender expressions. This novel argues otherwise. Like, if you're not up on all of the, like, the details of the terminology, I just found that kind of a helpful, like, clarifying thing that you brought up.

[Craig]

And this, and this book is about a lot of people working out their particular personal feelings and experiences within communities, many of which find themselves drawn around lines of gender expression. And like, I think actually it's a great work for kind of developing your sense of that if you don't have a sense of it already through your own lived experience or otherwise. Because it is like, it's a lot of folks just trying to figure out where they fit and how they feel and how it matches who they are. And yeah, it really fits. It is a good way to, like, understand that if you don't quite at first blush, you know.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And then this is the last thing. Just another bit of the note that's included in the 20th anniversary edition. She says, with this novel, I planted a flag. Here I am. Does anyone else want to discuss these important issues? I wrote it not as an expression of individual high art, but as a working class organizer. Mimeographs, a leaflet, a call to action. I'm typing these words as June 2003 surges with pride. What year is it now? As you read them, what has been won, what has been lost, I can't see from here. I can't predict. But I know this. You are experiencing the impact of what we in the movement take a stand on and fight for today. The present and past are the trajectory of the future. But the arc of history does not bend toward justice automatically. As the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed, without struggle, there is no progress. That's what the characters in Stonebush Blues fought for. The last chapter of the saga of struggle has not yet been written. So it's just, you know, it is to think about the. The. The ups and the downs since then, just, just even to talk about June 2003 and then to immediately have the 2004 presidential campaign.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Like be fought on like these, like discriminating against gay people, basically demonizing them for political gain.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

And then to have Feinberg die like, you know, the year before the obergefell. Was that 2015, like shortly before the Obergefell decision.

[Craig]

Which Obergefell was 2015.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Yeah. Which. An imperfect and like partial victory, but kind of a symbol for like broader social acceptance and tolerance. And then to go to spend the.

[Craig]

Next 10 years doing what we did.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Just like relitigating it and getting gradually worse. I don't know. It's like if there's something to take away from that, it's just like where we are right now also is not the last chapter of it.

[Craig]

Yeah. Oh yeah. I have some thoughts on like the way in which this book is a. Is a work of hope. Even though some of the awfulness that exists in it might convince you that maybe it isn't.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So there's a message from a trans butch lesbian delivered through two white cisgender guys on the podcast. Yeah, it's 2025, baby.

[Craig]

Listen, that's what, that's what I'm saying. We got to read this book and talk about it. Other people could also do that too, but it's good. I'm happy I read this book. Let's take a quick break and then I'll tell you about it. Andrew.

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

Yeah, you could write a seminal work of fiction or you could make a great website. Why not both?

[Andrew]

I mean, you could do both things. Also, Squarespace is the website that helps you make websites. Even if you don't know if the list of adjectives you would use to describe yourself does not include web developer. That's fine. You don't need to know that stuff to do a Squarespace.

[Craig]

Sure. Uh huh.

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

You know those, I know em.

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

Trying to think about where to start, Andrew, because we did cover a decent chunk of Feinberg's work work in the first part of the show and there, there's some versions of this conversation where we wind up talking about that way more than what's in the novel. And I just kind of say go read the novel. Go. Just go read it. And like that's not, that's not enough.

[Andrew]

We got to, I mean we can't literally defeats the purpose of the podcast if people, if people lo download it and they're just like, here's a. Here is a. Here, here is a word from our sponsors and a couple guys telling you go read this book. Instead of telling you we'd be abdicating our responsibility.

[Craig]

We've only ever. No, we actually never done. We did read War and Peace. I was gonna say we've only ever done an episode where we just talked around a book once. But that wasn't that. That was probably some other episode that I'm thinking of.

[Andrew]

So what, okay, tell me the like the narrative arc of the novel. We've talked about like the big ideas that the novel is playing with. We've talked about Feinberg's identity and how it may or may not overlap with that of the protagonist in this book, but, like, turn it from a big pile of sort of political and cultural objectives into a novel for me.

[Craig]

Whoa. Oh. I will turn it into the novel. Me. Not unless you want just, like, tell me what the.

[Andrew]

Tell me what makes it a story.

[Craig]

What makes it a story. Sure, yeah, let's. Yes. Let me tell you what makes it a story, and then I will maybe zoom out a little bit and tell you what makes it a work of political fiction. Because I do think there are some tone stuff sometimes that makes it feel. It does.

[Andrew]

Like the West Wing.

[Craig]

No, no, I did have my notes. What do I mean when I say it's political? And I did not write. I don't mean the West Wing, but I should have written that. Should have known.

[Andrew]

That's why I'm here.

[Craig]

Yeah, no, I know. It's a. You can put that on my tombstone. You can put. I didn't mean the West Wing on my tombstone.

[Andrew]

I didn't mean the. I never meant the wistwing.

[Craig]

It is a novel about Jess Goldberg, who grows up as a young butch woman presenting masculine. Is a girl, you know, faces discrimination at a very young age around that. Her parents don't really know what to do with her. And over the course of her life, she moves between different communities of LGBTQ folks. You know, it's the mid 20th century, going into the 60s and 70s, so she is with a lot of butch and femme, you know, gay women, lesbians. Though there is, like, a part where she's like, I don't even like using that word. It doesn't feel right. Like, sure. As the book progresses through years, she's getting different jobs, often in manufacturing industries. You know, she's is in Buffalo for most of the novel. And so they're working in a lot of different industries in that region, including a pipe factory, which I think is a place where Feinberg worked and moving through different relationships, moving through different cohorts. By the time she gets to the 70s, she's in one of her, like, longest or deepest relationships. And the person she's with, Teresa, is, like, working at a university and reading up on, like, modern women's lib that is emerging. And I guess what is that? Is that second wave feminism at that point?

[Andrew]

Yeah, that would be if we're talking about the 70s.

[Craig]

Yeah. And it's kind of throwing them all for a loop because they had some roles that worked for them in their communities. And in particular, from Jess's perspective, you know, butch lesbians are being left out of this. You know, Particular conversation because of the similarities in the relationships to heterosexual men and women. Right. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Just to define terms real quick. I do have some stuff from the dating app. Her has a website that has a lot. That is a. That has a large repository of terminology.

[Craig]

Yeah. Help me.

[Andrew]

Definitions that I find helpful. Stone butch. Now, the website does say there are no rules set in stone, which I cannot tell if that is intentional, but either way, well done. Website for the dating app. Her says that a stone butch is a, quote, masculine lesbian who does not want to be touched during sex.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

Or wants to be touched in specific ways with specific partners, and they get the most sexual gratification from the pleasure of their partner. One can be stone without being butch, butch without being stone. And being a stone butch has its own meaning and history when you put them together. Stone femme was a term that, like, came up all the time as I was googling Stone books.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Just because it's like in. In.

[Craig]

Not in Parliament. Yeah, sure.

[Andrew]

Like, yeah, it's another, like, it's. It's a femme identifying person who matches all the other criteria. This novel, you know, it didn't invent this identity. It dates back to the 40s and 50s. But it is, like, strongly associated with the. With the identity to the extent that, like, there. There is a. The website takes time to dispel a misconception that being stone is, quote, a result of sexual trauma or gender dysphoria. But the site points out, quote, you don't need to. A why to explain if you do or don't want to be touched in a certain way. So the character in this book, that. That identity is sort of tied up in the trauma that they experience. But if you do not want to be touched that way and you didn't experience that trauma, like, that's also fine. Like, you don't need to feel weird about it.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's what I've got.

[Craig]

Okay. Yeah. The debate that characters have around, it's interesting. Okay, so let me zoom back a little bit. Zoom, zoom, zoom. I'm zooming in this episode. Please do. The relationship with Teresa, I want to say, is, like, halfway through the book. I could be misremembering exactly where it lands, because afterwards, some other relationships are going to happen. She's going to start passing as a man. Jess is. And then after a few years of that, she winds up moving to New York City. But when she first kind of embarks on, you know, encountering the queer community in Buffalo, there is this kind of, like, learning the lingo Learning the roles. She has no frame of reference for it. She starts as a teen, so the things that not drive her to that community, but like, the reason she needs it is. Her parents are a mess. Quickly characterized at the beginning of the novel as they were in a pretty bad marriage where her dad thought that having a baby would make her mom like being married, and her mom had the baby to prove him wrong. That's a pretty bad setup.

[Andrew]

That doesn't work for anybody.

[Craig]

No, it works for no one, least of all Jack Goldberg. The novel actually starts with a pretty long letter from her to Theresa that is like fulfilling a promise that she makes to her when they ultimately break up in the novel. And it kind of sets the stage for this character that. That you're gonna meet. But then you get her. Basically. It's. It's all chronological. There's not a lot of flashbacks or anything like that. So you're meeting a young Jess Goldberg who is a little kid. Her parents don't want to raise her, really. So for the first few years of her life, she's spending long periods of time with like, a Navajo community who lives in the same building. And so from even an early age, she is like, kind of between two cultures, not really fitting in in any one specific place. Always feeling like she's an outsider, even among people who are accepting her. You know, that sort of thing. Yeah, she starts, you know, at school, like, everybody's being terrible to her because she is presenting somewhat as a boy, but she's not. She finds her way into this. She starts, you know, gets an after school job when she's like 15 or 16. Somebody she's working with mentions that, you know, her brother, I think, is gay, and there's a bar that he goes to where there are people that will be more accepting. And she's like, you gotta tell me the name of this place. I gotta go there.

[Andrew]

Sure, yeah.

[Craig]

Bar named Tifka's in Niagara Falls. And she goes there, and she's at this point also learned that she is a lesbian. And she's taken in as what they call a baby, butch. And they're, you know, butch. Al and Jacqueline are the two people who take her in. They have father, son, talks about what strap ons are.

[Andrew]

You know, that's important, important talk to have.

[Craig]

It is. And it's also important, like, she has come here, she is given words to help her, you know, even just talk to herself about her lived experience. But she's also asking a lot of questions about, like, okay, well, if I'M in a relationship with a femme. Like, how do I actually act with them? How do I behave? You know, like, what am I supposed to do? And she is given. There's this interesting moment. I bring up the strap on and dildo thing because there's a pretty good quote from Jackie that is talking about like this as a. Is a good example of how of, you know, how a butch can define a relationship. She says, you know, you could make a woman feel real good with this thing, maybe better than she ever felt in her life, or you could really hurt her and remind her of all the ways she's ever been hurt in her life. You got to think about that every time you strap this on, and then you'll be a good lover. And there is a vein in the book, and that is one example among many. When it's at its most hopeful, I feel it is Feinberg, like, being like, this is a story where I can put in writing and in characters, words, the things I. Either people told me that gave me strength or I really wish someone had said to me at some point in my life like that. That feels like a project of this novel. And I don't mean that as a. In a derogatory way, but that quote from her that you read towards the end of the opening where it was like, something about using the language of a pamphlet, like, I'm giving you this to inform you that's a thing that this book is doing, is that Jess gets to receive a lot of information and a lot of encouragement from characters throughout the book. And if you are someone reading it for whom Jess's experience or any of the other characters experience is, like, remotely similar to yours. I think Feinberg is, like, hoping that this novel gives you that. Maybe, maybe not hoping. Or at least she wants to honor the people who gave that to her. I don't know. Unfortunately, a common occurrence in the first part of the book is that all these bars that Goldberg is spending time in where she's finding community get raided by the cops all the time.

[Andrew]

Pretty bad, I'm sure, for. I mean, they wouldn't do it without good reason, though, right?

[Craig]

Yeah, they're totally coming in. They always have warrants. They always have, like, called ahead to get everyone.

[Andrew]

They're just making sure they're not serving underage patrons.

[Craig]

It's the only thing that they're doing. Yeah, everybody's being totally chill about all of it. No, it's pretty terrible. All the things that cops do in this book are pretty awful.

[Andrew]

You don't have to say, in this.

[Craig]

Book, there are scenes that I will not recount that are graphic and terrible where Goldberg and other characters are the victims of sexual assault. And that is where, as you mentioned earlier, the trauma, Some of the trauma that Goldberg experiences that kind of calcifies her emotions, as she puts it, as a stone butch. That's where that comes from. From that trauma, from that experience and from some. She experiences that school as well.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

The thing that these raids from the cops do, narratively, I guess, but also in the lives of these characters is that they. They serve as kind of. Maybe not natural is the right word, but breaking points for a lot of these relationships were like, okay, well, then that club got shut down, and the two people that she was close to, she doesn't hear from them ever again and spends the rest of the novel wondering what happened to them.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Like, those communities aren't all going to naturally migrate to whatever the next place is together. So.

[Craig]

Yeah. And usually what. The novel does this a lot, both with her jobs and with those communities where, like, there'll be a chapter break on kind of a. Wow, that really sucks what happened to that group of folks or that job situation. And then the next chapter will have a minor time jump where Goldberg has, like, re. Established herself somewhere else in the. In kind of the fallout. And then you, the reader, kind of get to piece together, you know, what her new situation is. She does run away from school after a sexual assault and, you know, is taken in by somebody else that she meets at a different lesbian bar. And kind of that, again, is like, hey, I'm meeting all these people. I am, you know, growing in some of these relationships and more horrific cough stuff, cop stuff happens, and she has to move on. And then you get to, like, a stretch where she is at this point, maybe 20, 21, and she is working in union jobs, and there's a couple different union jobs she has in a row in a bunch of manufacturing facilities where you get some of this, as you said, like, intersectional labor stuff where it's like, she gets, you know, there are a lot of butch women working on it in these factories. There's a union unionizing effort at one of them. And, like, a lot of different things hinge on the. The various, you know, identity groups at this factory. There's, like, all the straight dudes who are all. They're not all jerks. Hashtag, not all men. Like, one guy, Duffy, is cool, but most of them are bad.

[Andrew]

Always a Duffy.

[Craig]

There's always a Duffy. He's Cool. But everybody wonders if he's a communist. And he never. Throughout the whole book, anytime anybody talks about Duffy, they're like, is that guy a communist? And the one time that Goldberg asked him direct, he goes, let me just. We'll have coffee and I'll talk to you about my worldview. And you're like, yeah, Duffy's a communist. Yes.

[Andrew]

Oh, boy. Duffy pretty good. That's the kind of chameleon thing that you can do in society sometimes is just like, what do you want me to believe? I'm going to be really careful divulging what I actually think, so you can just project whatever you want on me. I don't, like, truly project whatever you need to. I don't care what it is, but I'm not going to participate.

[Craig]

The union stuff is really interesting. There's like, there's a fun baseball game scene that happens where, like, all the. The butch women at the factory have to play a high stakes game of baseball against all the straight dudes and they win. There's also, as I said, should be about that. It should. Well, I would read more about that. The unionization effort where, like, at one point Goldberg has to get passed on a job because Duffy was going to. I think Duffy or another foreman was going to give it to a black guy at that factory. And this racist who didn't want to work with a black guy then gets mad at her for letting the black guy get the promotion and, like, causes a machine accident that almost severs her thumb. Like, there is. There is like, jungle. The jungle level. The hazards of manufacturing work in this novel that I didn't expect. Yeah, I was struggling to think of a contemporary or modern ish novel I've read that had this level of like, hey, making stuff like books and corrugated boxes and pipes in the latter part of the 20th century is terrible and could kill everyone if they don't have unions. Like, I cannot think of a novel I've read for the show that actually engages with it this way.

[Andrew]

I just think that every. Not, not to throw these novelists under the bus, but I feel like all the, all the American novelists now are like, yeah, I went to college and I was sad. I'm going to write a book about that.

[Craig]

Hey, you're not wrong. I actually think you're not.

[Andrew]

Every book is just the secret history. Like, it's just all sad weirdos.

[Craig]

No, you're not wrong. I think some of it is like the lived experience thing, right? Where it's like, what, There's a Lot of. Right. What? You know, and then, you know, oh, well, obviously Upton Sinclair didn't know that. I mean, he went there firsthand and did report. Maybe just do more reporting.

[Andrew]

Maybe just maybe go work in the box factory.

[Craig]

But no, it's. It's, like, really intense.

[Andrew]

My favorite thing from a childhood tour of a box factory. Favorite thing.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

I remember is that little, like, the. They tell the little pattern of weird, like, colors and lines and shapes and stuff that you can find, like, on the bottom of a cardboard box or something that they use to make sure that the machines are calibrated properly. Like printing the right colors and putting stuff where it's supposed to be.

[Craig]

I don't know.

[Andrew]

I think it's cool.

[Craig]

That's kind of cool. Like the. Like the. Like all the little signs on the sidewalk that you don't know what they are, but they all mean something. Somebody should do a podcast about.

[Andrew]

Somebody should do a podcast about all the. Like, the.

[Craig]

The stuff that you don't see.

[Andrew]

The stuff that is, like, so. So unseen.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

That it's almost totally unseen.

[Craig]

Almost totally. Like.

[Andrew]

Like 90 to 99% unseen.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Somebody should do a podcast. We could talk. We could talk about it off.

[Craig]

Okay. It'll be a project that we can embark on. The worker working class stuff is really cool. Like, there's the stuff with the baseball game and the. The butch woman at those factories. Like, whether or not they get to be part of the unionization effort is huge. Duffy accidentally, at one point, I think this is. Yeah. Duffy misgenders her. I think later when she is passing. So maybe Duffy's not part of the baseball game, actually, but she has to, like, leave this whole unionization drive because she gets misgendered and loses her job in the sense that she was passing and is now. He outs her is what I mean.

[Andrew]

Sure. And it's not Duffy being a jerk. It's just Duffy not knowing.

[Craig]

No, he missed. He missteps. He should not have said what he said. Like, he knew, but then.

[Andrew]

Oh, he does. Okay. He doesn't intentionally.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

Well, gee whiz, Duffy, I was in your corner, but now I'm not.

[Craig]

He misspoke. Like, he. He. He was not trying to out her.

[Andrew]

Okay. Okay, That's. That's what I was asking. He's like, did Duffy mean to do this?

[Craig]

No, he did not mean to do it. Okay. But so then later, when she is in another unionization effort and, like, people are like, hey, somebody vouched for you and said you were a good organizer because there's like, strike scenes where she is, like, in a crowd of people, like, fighting cops and saving people from cops. It's pretty cool. She actually, like, backs down from being an organizer because she doesn't want the heat because she'd already lost a job during a unionization drive. She knows that the stakes for her are much higher if her. If she's, like, actually vocal and visible in a union drive. And that's the way that, like, this book and Feinberg writing in the back of the book kind of drive home that the. Her perspective, specifically as a worker and as a laborer, is that things like homophobia, transphobia, racism just get amplified and wielded by classist forces and, you know, capitalist forces.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that.

[Craig]

That use that stuff to concentrate wealth, right?

[Andrew]

Yep.

[Craig]

Huh. If you've thought about it for two seconds, it kind of sounds. Or if you've thought about it before, it maybe sounds like, oh, yeah, duh. But also, a lot of people don't think about it that way. And maybe they should think how.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I was thinking how glad I was that somebody named all these problems decades and decades ago so that we could fix them now so that they're not problems anymore.

[Craig]

They're definitely fixed. You're right. Certainly been fixed since 1993. But, yeah, that's what a lot of the workers and laborer stuff part of this book is, like, really doing for me. It's also driving home how dangerous all this working stuff is. A guy gets impaled by a forklift. It's pretty bad. And also there's an element of disability, like rep and disability. Just rep. Rep. I don't need to say that twice.

[Andrew]

You. I mean, you could say the full.

[Craig]

Word representation is what I mean. Yeah, sure.

[Andrew]

Where full word fills more seconds of airtime.

[Craig]

Listen, that's not what I'm talking about podcast wise.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

Like, both the, you know, Goldberg's response to some of the assault that she experiences and the trauma there, but also, like, she suffers multiple, you know, physical injuries throughout the book, and the recovery from those injuries is always, like, considered as part of the narrative. And the care she does and doesn't receive, the ways in which it impacts how she can move through the world. Whether it's her hand injury or towards the end of the book, she suffers, like, this terrible attack in a subway from just, like, awful young men, and her jaw is wired shut. But then she has to leave the emergency room because she knows she doesn't have insurance. None of her ID paperwork is like, if they actually medically examine her. It doesn't match her id and she knows that she's gonna like, not receive the coverage or whatever, so she just gets out of there. And so she like, has fled the hospital with a wired shut jaw.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And then like, spends a few weeks, like, not able to talk. And it's to. That's just an interesting perspective that Feinberg is like, very passionate about layering in on top of all the other stuff that she's writing about.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

And this is all like, I think, happening around the core relationship stuff in the novel. Like I said, she's got this big relationship with Teresa that falls apart because as Teresa is pondering, like, what it is to be a femme lesbian in this new women's movement, Jess is like, I'm feeling increasingly unsafe as a butch woman and am wondering, am I a woman anyway? And if that doesn't matter to me, then maybe I should pass as a man. Like, she's encountered a few other people who are taking hormones. They know a doctor. What if she got, you know, chest reconstruction surgery? And Teresa doesn't agree with any of that. And Jess is like, I don't know if I can survive not doing that.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

So their relationship falls apart and she decided. Jess decides to pass as male and the like her. This goes on for a few years. She feels safer in public, but way more alone and like, adrift. And I think the word she uses is exiled from, you know, her community. There's a really bonkers scene where she picks up a barista named Annie and like, goes home with her and they have a one night stand and she passes as male through sex by like create, like running to the bathroom in the dark and putting on a strap on. And then like, it's. And then has to like, fake. It's. It's an insane scene. It's like really wild. And then of course, she like goes to a. On a second date to like a wedding with this woman. And the woman is like an incredible homophobic bigot.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

Like, okay, cool. I don't need to. I feel maybe bad about what had happened, but I'm leaving this now.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it's.

[Craig]

It was. It's a bananas scene. It's pretty. It has like a. It has like a. An element of light comp, like kind of farce to it.

[Andrew]

Yeah, there. There's a. There's a slightly farcical. I'm trying to think of what exact like, sitcom I would, I would use, but there's. I don't know, there's like a, A vein of Bewitched where you're trying to, like, we can't. Whoever is over at our house for a big dinner can't find out that we're witches and we need to hide it.

[Craig]

It's a really heightened, like, and very specific. Okay, let's consider passing what. What passing is going to look like for this character and take it to an end point. And who knows? Maybe it's a thing that Feinberg or someone Feinberg knows has experienced.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

But it is like a really, like, out there experience for this character. Another friend of hers, ultimately, she's in another relationship and she stops taking the testosterone treatment, falls out with that relationship, and then moves to nyc. And then from there she winds up in a. In a nice, committed relationship with a trans woman who is her neighbor. Ruth ultimately finds her voice at a, like, political rally that she goes to after they go on kind of a I've got to reconnect with my past trip that she takes to Buffalo, which does have a. Like, let's check in on all the characters we met several years ago and where they are, which is actually the work of the character and the work of you, the reader. And it's largely heartwarming. But, like, for every heartwarming interaction, there's a, okay, but me and that person can't reconcile. Or me and that person that I knew for a few weeks is not as tolerant as I thought they were. Or that person is gone for tragic reasons, even though I've reconnected with this other person.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I don't have in my notes the exact place where my brain is pulling this quote from, but as I was doing all my reading about Feinberg in this book and the genre, generally the a terminology that something along the lines of, like, bleak hope came up. Like. Yeah, there's a lot.

[Craig]

Or something.

[Andrew]

Sure. Yeah. There's a lot of finding hope amidst a situation that is clearly not ideal. That resonated with me as a vibe, you know.

[Craig]

Yeah, I will get around to reading the end of the book. I think that has that kind of encapsulated in a nutshell.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I want to talk about the end of the book. I also want to talk about just, you know, because we're doing a Pride Month thing. We didn't. We didn't say that up front because I guess we're like Target and we're putting all of our mentions of pride in the back now. So. So that people. People won't come in and yell at.

[Craig]

Us.

[Andrew]

Is, you know, if, if you were thinking of A of a. I'm sure we've be clowned ourselves several times in the space of this podcast, talking about terminology and communities that we are not a part of, but say you are. But we're at least sort of conversant with the terminology and we know where to go to get more information if we need it. If you're reading this as a younger version of yourself who knows nothing about this or very little about this and is trying to discover more about this or trying to. To find more, I don't know, examples of trans experience or lesbian experience, so you can. You can find empathy and kind of learn about people who live different lives than you. Like, how do you feel like you would have encountered this book, like 20 years ago?

[Craig]

Huh. That's a good question. I knew considerably fewer out gay or queer folks.

[Andrew]

Me too.

[Craig]

20 years ago.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

So I do think I am benefiting reading this at this point in my life just from a broader frame of reference for what different people I know have experienced. I would probably have. I don't know, I probably would have read it more academically and maybe my discussion of it comes across a little more academically as I try to relay it on a podcast. But I probably, if I was reading this 20 years ago, I would have been reading it with student brain.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And I. And that's a lot of books that we've talked about, but I. I feel like I would not have had maybe as. As visceral a response to some of Jess's experiences. I hope I would have been inspired or in, you know, made more curious about people in the world around me. I think I would have, because I would have still found, I think the. The fact that it is at least now a historical novel in a way. Not really, but I mean, even then.

[Andrew]

A little bit like, if it's a book in the 90s about stuff that's happening in the. In the mid mid century.

[Craig]

Yeah, it runs it like, kind of like there's a. There's a bit where they all learn about Stonewall.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I was going to say like some. Another thing that came up as I was researching is this is considered to be like a pre Stonewall novel because a lot of it takes place.

[Craig]

All of the characters that we spend a lot of time with came into, you know, came out or not and had their lived experiences pre Stonewall. Like kind of. Many of them figured out whatever their identity was going to be before that happened or at least have a lot of their experiences in the book. So, yeah, that's There is a bit. It's clearly the mid to late 80s, and the characters are kind of sitting around going, like, I don't know what to do with the young gays. Like, I don't. They're different from me. I don't know how to relate to what their experience is. But we know we need them and we know that they need us. I know. Feinberg has also referred to this as a bridge novel, recognizing, like, the loss of people during the AIDS epidemic and just the loss of knowledge during the AIDS epidemic. So that's another thing. I think again, if I was reading this 20 years ago, I probably would not have had as ready access to the emotional parts of the novel and would have hopefully just learned a lot of history that I. That I didn't know. I think that's. I have a leg up on myself, having read a lot More in the 20 years since, that the historical elements are not striking me as new information. This is giving me a personal way into a lot of those things. Whereas I think for myself 20 years ago, a lot of the facts in this novel may have been pretty new to me.

[Andrew]

It's such a scam that you get more knowledge and experience and, like, context and perspective at the same time as your body gradually gets worse. Sucks.

[Craig]

Well, and what's kind of fun. Thank you for asking that question that way, because it is like, what is happening for Goldberg in the novel, like, in very early. One of the reasons she knows she needs to leave her family is they. Her parents come home. She's maybe a tween. I don't remember exactly how old she is. And she is looking through magazines and, like, seeing all these women and none of them look like her. And she's like, I don't like, where. What kind of woman am I going to be? She's trying. And she tries on some of her dad's clothes just because that's how she feels. She looks at herself in the mirror and can kind of envision an older version of herself. And then her parents see her doing that and then, like, put her in a facility for four weeks where she is, you know, forced to confirm to the, you know, sex she was assigned at birth. And that quest for, like, knowledge about her future self is a big driving force of the novel. And then where she winds up at the end is this sense of like, well, if I, I. If I knew what I knew now, would I make different choices? And I don't know, because if I made different choices, I wouldn't be here right now. Yeah, as the person I am. That's a long answer to your. To your good question.

[Andrew]

No, that's fine.

[Craig]

I think the other. The. There's, like, two things of that kind of bleak hope before I read the. The ending of the book here.

[Andrew]

Yeah, sure.

[Craig]

The whole, like, denouement of the book is this bleak hope thing, where it's like, okay, she is in getting into a more solid situation. She has a better job, though it's not union, which is a bummer for her. She has a steady relationship, and she now has the means to, like, go back to where she was from and start reconnecting with some people.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

And as I said, like, some of those go, well, like, she reconnects with Duffy, she reconnects with Grant, but not Gloria, who is the woman who had, like, these two kids that really liked her, and she's like, no, you can't talk to my kids. Go away. She never really reconnects with Teresa, though she does write her this moving letter. Some of the folks she's looking for have died or have been committed to institutions so that they can forget all the trauma that they experienced.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

And so there is the hope that I'm. That I'm trying to express that at least Goldberg believes and is able to move through the world, believing that relationships are repairable and worth trying to repair them, because how else can you continue to have the chosen family that you need to move through the world? It's sort of like a hope. I think we've. You and I have experienced this in a lot of, like, the activist reading we've done over the last, like, eight years, where it's like, you can't not have hope, because what else do you have? Like, you have to, like, have a base level of hope, or else there's nothing to be done. And that overlaps with what we said earlier about transgender warriors and Feinberg's writing that, like, Jess comes to a conclusion that the world can be different because it was ever different for people like her. So whatever it might, it might take a lot. It might not take. It might not be possible in her lifetime, but she can work towards a horizon where things are. Are better or at least different. So the ending of the novel kind of expresses this, and I just alluded to this. She has, like, a dream and then is just kind of in her apartment thinking, I recall the night Teresa and I broke up. How I stared into the night sky, straining for a glimpse of my own future. If I could send a message back in time to that young, butch Sitting on a milk crate. It would be this. My neighbor Ruth asked me recently, if I had my life to live all over again, would I make the same decisions? Yes, I answered unequivocally, yes. I'm so sorry it's had to be this hard. But if I hadn't walked this path, who would I be? At the moment I felt at the center of my own life, the dream still braided like sweet grass in my memory, I remember Duffy's challenge. Imagine a world worth living in, a world worth fighting for. I closed my eyes and allowed my hopes to soar. I heard the beating of wings nearby. I opened my eyes. A young man on a nearby rooftop released his pigeons like dreams into the dawn stone Butch blues.

[Andrew]

That's nice.

[Craig]

Yeah, it is nice.

[Andrew]

That's a nice note to end on.

[Craig]

Yeah, it's a good book. I think I do that. I do this a lot at some end of some episodes where I'm like, I don't know. It's a good book. Yeah, I do think that's like.

[Andrew]

It is. I do. It is better to say, it's a good book. You should go read it after you have talked about it for an hour.

[Craig]

That's true.

[Andrew]

As opposed to. As opposed to having it be the first thing that you tell.

[Craig]

That was the first thing I tried to say. Thank you for coaching me out of that decision. If I had to go back and do this, always trying to always try and do that, maybe I wouldn't do that. I do think, like, again, what I. One of the values of the novel is some of these little nuggets of this would have been nice to hear. Or this would be a nice thing to hear. At one point, Edna, who's at one of Jess's partners, Jess is kind of bemoaning, feeling like neither gender. She says, you're more than just neither, honey. There's other ways to be that. There's other ways to be than either or. It's not so simple. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many people who don't fit. You're beautiful, but I don't have words to help people see that. There's lots of, like, really charming and helpful and moving nuggets like that at times. If the narrative. When the narrative slacks a little bit, if there's not like a propulsive part of a chapter and one of those hits, it can kind of stand out as like, oh, is this more pamphlet than story? Right. Ultimately, I think as the sum of its parts, it's both. And it works really well. But if you're not in the right headspace or, you know, maybe that could turn you off. If it's like, or in some of the union stuff, I think some of the language is like, it's pretty blunt. It's a blunt story at times. And I think it's, it knows what it wants to say and it is not a work about like the mystery of figuring out what it means. It wears what it wears its intent on its sleeve pretty clearly. And for some people, that's not what they're. What they like about reading fiction. I, you know, I think if this stretch yourself, if that's not what you like about fiction, this is probably worth it anyway.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

Yeah. That's the book. Play baseball. Win, Win a Win a jerk's baseball glove against his will. Teach them a lesson.

[Andrew]

You do? Yeah. Teach them a lesson.

[Craig]

Teach jerks a lesson. That's what I've learned.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Thanks for letting me tell you about this book, Andrew. I'm glad to have read it.

[Andrew]

Tell me about it.

[Craig]

If folks at home want to recommend any other work by Feinberg or any other work like Stone Butch Blues, you can send us an email overdue podmail.com find us on social media at overduepod. Thanks to Nick Laurengis who composed our theme music. Andrew, if folks want to know more about the show, where do they go?

[Andrew]

Overduepodcast.com is the Internet website. Up there we have links to the books that we have read and the ones we are going to read. We also have links to the social sites that Craig mentioned and ways to subscribe to the show and to Our Patreon page, patreon.comoverdupod subscribe there. Support the show financially. Get, get access to bonus streams. Get access to our Discord community. Get access to the Long Read project that we're about to start on the Silmarillion by J.R.R. tolkien. It's gonna be fun. Probably.

[Craig]

Probably.

[Andrew]

Craig. Next week we are both reading it's American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

And my goodness gracious goodness, we will.

[Craig]

Have some guests from Too Scary, didn't watch. And what a wonderful book to have new guests with.

[Andrew]

What a cool book. What a cool book to talk about with three women we've never met before.

[Craig]

I am excited to talk about it. I think it will be a fun episode.

[Andrew]

It will be a fun episode. It will be hard to make it. Not for us hours long. But that's just what we've signed up for.

[Craig]

Yeah, it's going to be something.

[Andrew]

It's going to be something, so get ready for that. Hard bodies. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis.

[Craig]

Jesus.

[Andrew]

Anything else? We good?

[Craig]

That's it.

[Andrew]

Okay, everyone, until we talk to you next week, please try to be happy. That was a Headgum podcast.