Daniel Lavery (Ortberg): Something That May Shock and Discredit You
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Thurs Feb 20, 2020, 7 pm
Third Place Books Seward Park
Seward Park (Seattle)
Free
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Slate's Dear Prudence advice columnist and founder of the uproariously funny website The Toast, Daniel Lavery is out with a new collection of essays bearing the slightly beguiling title Something That May Shock and Discredit You. Some of the chapters in this quasi-memoir lean more into the literary spoof territory he charted in Texts from Jayne Eyre, but the major theme of the book concerns the many turns of his transition narrative. Though Lavery only learned he was a trans man in his early 30s, he cites biblical stories and popular television shows as texts that offered a way to understand ideas about gender and transformation. It's hard to describe Lavery's discursiveness and wit and range in a single capsule blurb, so I'll just leave you with two essay titles that give you a sense of his energy: "Chapter Titles from the On The Nose, Po-Faced Transmasculine Memoir I Am Trying Not To Write" and "The Opposite of Baptism."
by Rich Smith