Customer Reviews

S/He

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

Minnie Bruce Pratt is a rare combination of intellect, artfulness, and compassion. I find disturbing the review sited above which claims that some gay and straight readers will find Bruce Pratt "repulsive," that she will be perceived as not "real"--not a "real" lesbian, not a "real" woman. Why is this ridiculousness being perpetuated in what should be a concise, intelligent synopsis/review? I mean, really, does it have to be so banal? I love Minnie Bruce Pratt. She speaks in gorgeous, accomplished poetry the language of the unheard. That, again, is a very rare thing.

Words flutter across the page like doves in flight, painting a picture of love like none I have ever seen before, yet as familiar to me as a lover's morning smile or an evening hug. Having already been moved to tears by Feinberg's *Stone Butch Blues*, Minnie Bruce Pratt was the natural next step toward understanding and awareness that only unfolded more of myself. If all this is new to you, open the door. If you are already a fan, you know what to expect. You won't be disappointed.

Pratt's language in this book is sometimes painfully raw, as she strips her feelings and experiences bare for the world to read. It is often beautifully poetic and highly quotable. She can come across as tender or intolerant, but always there is strength and affection running through the warp and weave of her story.

I also found the "Some straights and gays alike may be repulsed by Pratt, finding her neither a "real woman" nor a "real lesbian"" of Amazon's Booklist review to be gratuitous, inflammatory, condescending, and repulsive. Gender and sexual identity are highly personal and nuanced, and not subject to external validation.

Recommended reading for:
- Anyone who enjoys poetic prose
- Anyone studying gender dentity or sexual identity
- Anyone who enjoys Dorothy Allison, Leslie Feinberg, or Bear Bergman

And you thought this text was about lovers who traverse gender and sexual dimensions of US culture? Since it's such a rich read, take another look at the revolutionary's socialist political cultural criticism. Minnie Bruce is doing a Lao Tzu impression to achieve a socio-cultural damnation of the US--"doing without doing." With lovers, gorgeous sexual scenes, deep intimacy in the foreground of her tiny "chapters"/stories, my favorite in-between writer is providing an understated socialist feminist critique. It is a genre-crossed book.

Like the soft spoken and appearing Southern lady gone North as she is, Pratt's got a near subliminal "undertext" going on beneath the surface reading of everyday life stories. One of the most delightfully subversive texts I've read of a modern poetic prose writer.

Oh give this one to all cultural and literary criticism students, queer theorists, transgender and gender studies scholars, and the poets, of course.

I never seem to have a copy of this beautiful book because i am always giving it to people, telling them to just keep it, because i feel like it will enrich their lives. I read this when i was first exploring my femme identity, and i found every piece beautiful, moving, powerful, and transformative. I cried again and again as MBP moved through her journey from young wife to lesbian feminist to femme, to powerful superfemme force to be reckoned with. This book is the only one i have ever read that deals perfectly with the pain and shame and profound sadness and lonliness of growing up filled with a desire that is not recognized in our culture, and is difficult to understand inside ourselves. For a long time i thought of this book as a love letter to Les Feinburg, MBP's partner, but now i read it as a love letter to herself, revealing her growth and strength and wisdom. When i grow up, i wannabe Minnie Bruce Pratt!!

I liked this book. The author has had an interesting life. A southern white, femme lesbian attracted to transgender stone butches, she grew up during and participated in, all the civil rights movements of the late twentieth century, black, women's, gay and transgender. With short one to four page vignettes the book moves quickly and is written in a rather "poetic" style (the author is a poet) and I would actually like to read a more conventionally written autobiography fleshed out with more detail. I thought it was interesting that later in life she reunited with several schoolmates and came to find out that many of them were also gay and reminisced about how different their lives could have been if they could have been out with each other, but back in the 60s that just couldn't have happened. I would also like to know more about her mother who is described once as a bulldagger. This book has lots of great slice of life scenes and I didn't want it to end. It was published in 1995, I hope the author writes a "part 2" the brings us up to the present.

This was great!!! As a dyke who has had a hard time coming to terms with being a femme, it was great to see some of myself in this book. The book is well written and evocative, plus it brings in enough gender, feminist and queer politics that it is not a simple pleasure read. And of course I love Leslie Feinberg, so reading a book written from the perspective of Leslie's partner was great.

I honestly tried to read with an open mind, but if this pretentious, pornographic little book is meant to shed light on the notion of gender fluidity, it comes up woefully short.

I admire Leslie Feinberg a great deal. Hir life hasn't been easy, but ze's managed to handle herself like a real gentlewo|man.

As for Minnie Bruce Pratt, she seems to have a chip on her shoulder. When strangers eye her, wondering what sex Feinberg is or what she sees in hir, she thinks it's grand fun. I remember quite clearly an anecdote she tells about a self-defense class she once took: the teacher told her not to worry if she couldn't bring herself to hurt him because most women have a hard time overcoming their nice-girl training at first, and then she nearly broke his kneecap.

I think Pratt loves the hostility Feinberg engenders more than she loves Feinberg, and I didn't enjoy her (temporary vicarious) company.