Lessons in Taxidermy: A Compendium of Safety and Danger (Punk Planet Books) [Paperback]

Bee Lavender (Author)

Book Description

Series: Punk Planet Books | Publication Date: April 1, 2005

“Bee Lavender is a fantastic writer. Her work is deep and personal, and I don’t think there are any places she’s scared to go.” —Michelle Tea, author of The Chelsea Whistle

“Bee’s scrupulous, non-histrionic style is thrilling; it allows for some devastating emotional moments because the author comes by them honestly.” —Ayun Halliday, author of No Touch Monkey

Diagnosed with cancer at age twelve and perilously pregnant at eighteen, surviving surgeries and violent accidents: sometimes you can't believe Bee Lavender is still alive; sometimes you think nothing could kill her. Lessons in Taxidermy is Lavender's fierce and expressive search for truth and an elusive sense of safety. This autobiographical tale is stark and resolved, but strangely euphoric, tying together moments and memories into a frantic, delicate, and often transcendently funny account of anguish and confusion, pain and poverty, isolation and illusion. While staying conscious of the particulars of her circumstances, Lavender frames her life in the context of history, traveling, landscape, and freak show culture. Lessons in Taxidermy is apocryphal, troubling, cathartic, and important.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Lavender, writer and online publisher of the parenting zine Hip Mama, holds nothing back as she recounts her life spent in and out of hospitals and her subsequent dissociation from her own body and emotions. She struggles with health problems from birth, which are compounded by her surroundings, including frequent encounters with street fights, domestic violence and poverty. Her voice is as strong as the front she puts up for the multitude of doctors she sees, and it's hard not to be in awe of what one fragile human being can withstand in the course of such a short lifetime (Lavender is now 35). Before Lavender has graduated from high school, she's endured cancer of the throat and skin (diagnosed as terminal at one point), cysts requiring massive jaw surgery, life-threatening allergies, internal infections and a major car accident resulting in multiple serious injuries. While Lavender herself steers far from any sort of self-aggrandizing, and her prose is somewhat inexpert, witnessing her strength and sheer determination to live makes this striking book completely engrossing. When questioned once about how she sees herself, Lavender explains, "primary identity is found in my body, in the scars, in the injuries and injustice and disease and decay." Lavender's struggles continue as she faces childbirth and recurrent health difficulties, but as her challenges grow, so does her strength to meet them, and this unforgettable memoir ends with Lavender's desire to "live as much as possible while I have the time." (Apr.)

Review

"Stunning: oblique yet heart-wrenching details." -- BITCH MAGAZINE: Feminist Response to Pop Culture

"[One of] the reigning mother superiors of the crowd [is] Bee Lavender . . ." -- TIME MAGAZINE

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 225 pages
• Publisher: Akashic Books (April 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1888451793
• ISBN-13: 978-1888451795
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #260,479 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poignant book about anguish, April 9, 2005

By 

Jackie (New York City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lessons in Taxidermy: A Compendium of Safety and Danger (Punk Planet Books) (Paperback)

I am stunned by this book and I suggest that everyone should read it. It's a tough and frightening book, but somehow quite uplifting. I feel disoriented and almost drunk after reading it. I somehow feel more vunurable to the possibilities that bad things like this could happen to me too, but also calm. She goes very low and deep into hell, but as the book goes along, she then seems to transcend it all and enjoy her strange life. At the end of the book I almost wanted to be her, and to have her perspective on life. This is a somewhat strange outcome of the book when you consider all the savage events that happen it it. I couldn't put it down. I read it in one long sitting while all of the things I was supposed to do yesterday went undone.

On the back of the book it says that it's "apocryphal, troubling, cathartic, and important". I agree with this 100%

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sex-Kitten.net Review, August 23, 2005

By 

Deanna Dahlsad (fargo, ND United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lessons in Taxidermy: A Compendium of Safety and Danger (Punk Planet Books) (Paperback)

While some of the great work in Bee's life, such as her work as an activist & mentor, is not given the credit or attention it perhaps ought to, what the reader receives is the sense of soul about the author, the woman.

In a world of biographies which read like resumes or entries in a name-dropping contest, Bee's book has substance.

Best of all, this is not some cheesy Little Engine That Could story; Her life hasn't been simple, and neither is her writing.

The book is charming in an uncanny way, with lush words for empty moments, providing real depth for pits of despair. There are eccentric elements which endear... then again, that only makes the echos of the pits stronger...

There are moments so bereft of detail as to leave you as lingering as she... Other moments are so full of details as to be sharp & pointy things.

Certainly the freakish haunts. But her writing draws readers close, with taunt yet tender moments so intimate, it dares you to recoil at the horrific events.

Her words, as well as her life, enchant.

(Condensed Review)

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hurray., September 5, 2008

By 

Julie Ann Maxwell "reinventingaxlrose" (UT) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lessons in Taxidermy: A Compendium of Safety and Danger (Punk Planet Books) (Paperback)

Will make you sad and hate yourself for making light the small things, good ending.
A wicked read, also check out the other Punk Planet books... I've read many and they are also good reads.