Customer Reviews

Stone Butch Blues: A Novel

5 star:		(69)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Author Leslie Feinberg has done a remarkable thing in the writing of Stone Butch Blues. The author has opened her soul to anyone who reads and exposed us each to our own fears of being different no matter how slight it may be. Being a gay male, reading this book was recommeded to me by a lesbian friend. At first I was reading it out of respect for my friend, but I found myself unable to put the book down. The story is endearing to anyone who desires to know more about the human spirit and the need and will to survive. I laughed, cried and saw myself in so many of the fears, questions, lonley times and good times experienced by Jess, the Stone Butch. Thank you Leslie Feinberg for the way you gave us a piece of your soul in the book and allowed us to become a little more accepting of our differences and of who we are.

Three days ago I began this book, today I finished it. I can not remember if I have ever read a book like this. I smiled and laughed out loud. My heart ached and I cried myself to sleep. As a femme, I wanted to reach out to Jess and protect her. It opened my heart and my mind. I think Jess is strong and beautiful. Praise to all the Butches out there who hurt and continue to struggle.

This book is not only an important historical chronicle for the gay community, it is a compelling novel. The characters take on their own lives and make us care for them. They are true to the time in which they live. I was deeply touched by this book. I simply cannot recommend it highly enough. I think it is very important that we as a community realize where we have come from and appreciate the sacrifices others made for rights we now take for granted. Having said that, this book is never preachy. You could read it simply as a character study and it would stand on its own and still be fascinating. A must-read for any lesbian, but especially for any stone butch or butch. I am not a lesbian, I am just a lesbian-lover, but feel that this book gave me deeper insights into several women I have known through the years, and especially into the life of one very special friend.

A dear friend recommended this saying it had changed her life, so I picked up a copy, but secretly doubted it. This novel proved me wrong. The protagonist's struggle through the ongoing and ever-evolving gay landscape as a butch woman, then a stone butch, then a transman raised so many questions and answers for me about the missing chapters of gay history, butch/femme dynamics, the FTM gender transition process, etc. And aside from all that, it was a moving story of one person's struggle to find love, acceptance, and safety in a world (and a body) that makes that all the more complicated. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a great literary read, even outside the GLBT community.

People see transsexuals in tabloids or an occasional film, either slasher or comedy roles. How often do we get to journey with a person who's transsexual from childhood through an adult coming into hir own? As a female heterosexual who grew up in a conservative background, I found this life-based novel a needed way to understand what my life might've been like, if.

Feinberg shows all us what it's like to grow up and explain hir kind of natural to people who only acknowledge "it" in order to deny/destroy "it." You connect to Jess, because isolation, rejection, acceptance, foolishness, and growing are such universal themes. Feinberg's writing helps you to be Jess through childhood, adolescence, romance, jobs, arrests, stubbornness, and personal triumphs.

I needed to walk in Jess's shoes, and Feinberg made that possible: the accomplishment of a good writer. Why didn't I get this book in my high school classes?

I found Stone Butch Blues to be a truly amazing novel; I too had a hard time putting it down. As a heterosexual male from the SF Bay Area, I have been exposed to homosexuals, but have never really been "behind the scenes" of the struggle for gender equality. Stone Butch Blues was a gripping and consistently sad account of the life of a tough yet sensitive "butch" and I learned quite a bit from it.
Jess definitely had to "walk a difficult path" in life as was prophecized early on by her neighbors and caretakers. The ever present emotional and physical struggles involved in Jess' life were heartbreaking and most of the time she found herself "drowning in loneliness." It is interesting to read the literary talent on display when Feinberg describes the first time Jess sees Rocco, or Jess' first dance, or when she asks Theresa to marry her. Feinberg has the ability to clearly describe these characters, create memorable scenes, and simultaneously lift your heart rate.
I thoroughly enjoyed this eye and mind opening book and in the process gained an insight that formerly didn't exist.

This isn't a "tortured tale" of anything. That's how people describe gay, bi, and transgendered people's stories when they get the message about how hard society tries to kill us, but still don't see the intense beauty of our culture and our lives.

Feinberg's autobgraphical novel does a brilliant job of showing how gender and class and sexuality and race intersect, without telling us out loud. This gives hir characters depth that most bestsellers lack. Feinberg's writing brings you right into the scene, and hir simple, honest descriptions give the story a feeling of raw truth.

It's interesting, to me, that so many lesbians (especially butch women) have embraced this book as a cult classic that really relates to their lives. At first, I thought, "they're missing the point; it's a transgendered story about how screwed-up gender is here." Then I realized that maybe it still relates to the lesbian community in terms of our gender issues; lots of female-to-male people start out identifying as lesbians.

I read this book three times: twice by myself, and once to my girlfriend as a bedtime story. It's cozy and scary in turns, but it's full of love.

Stone Butch Blues resonates as one of the best novels I've ever read. As I read the first chapter, which is a love letter from protagonist Jess Goldberg to her ex-girlfriend Teresa (which you will only understand the significance of, once you reach the end of the novel), I was mesmerised by Leslie's intense, intimate prose, which left me with a feeling of almost tasting Jess' tears. The rest of the novel takes the reader on Jess' journey, from her awkward first dabblings with gender-transgression as a child, and the bullying which she receives on account of people's confusion over whether she is male or female. The bullying culminates in a brutal rape, which is just one of several harrowing events that the reader must bear witness to, and be involved in, throughout the course of the novel. However, the novel is also lavish with tender moments -- and when they come around, they are so worthwhile and precious. Leslie's writing is one of the strongest aspects of the novel. Some may dismiss the writing as corny on account of its "pageturner" style, but this is only because Leslie calls a spade a spade, and does not try to awe the reader with unnecessarily decorative language. The focus is more on honesty.

When Jess finds the means, she starts experimenting surgically with gender: prompting torment about which identity to assume; that of a male or a female (this has great consequences when using public bathrooms.) Jess is an introspective and sensitive person, and the first person device provides an unsettling sense of authenticity: this stuff is so real, and the truth of the injustices Jess experiences make this novel not just a brilliant piece of art, but an effective reminder of why we should act politically to end all forms of discrimination.

Ultimately, one of the things I loved most about this book was how satisfying it was. The character of Ruth (a feminine, transgender home-maker) warmed my heart, and radiates as one of the most loveable characters I've ever experienced in a novel. The affinity Jess and Ruth find with each other proves to Jess how inconsequential gender is, after all. Though satisfying, and ultimately life-affirming, the novel ends on a haunting note: Jess has lost Teresa, whom she carries in her heart the whole novel through. There is some ambiguity about Ruth. What of Jess' future? What about the rest of the trans-gender people among us?

Highly recommended for butch lesbians, but really this book is so good that everyone should read it.

I have never read a book that has touched me to the core. From the moment I read the letter to Theresa to the end I could not put the book down, other than to occasionally take a deep breath or gasp. It was like looking in a mirror. I remember the fights in the bars, the butches and the femmes, not quite as intense as in the book, but I frequented the bars in the 70's and things were a bit more liberal. I remember that lost, trapped feeling of not knowing who or what you were. I still have it today. And for the first time I have read about a love that Jess had for Theresa that I have for someone who cannot be with me, the emotional pain was so intense that I actually began to feel again as well, so this book has helped with my own healing.There is no other word for this book short of amazing. Thank you Jess and thank you Leslie.

"Stone Butch Blues" is the story of someone "different" in a world where difference is not tolerated. This book is an important chronicle of herstory for the gay/lesbian/bi/TG community.

Without spoiling it for the reader, what is more horrendous than anything else in this book are the chronic "raids" the gay community had to endure in their gathering places, and the foolish rules they had to follow.(ex. in gay bars, women could be arrested if caught dancing with other women, women had to go into the ladies' room one at a time and were monitored to make sure they did)

"Butch" women, women who could not 'pass' as straight, ran or hid in the bathroom during a police raid.

Even more humiliating is the police brutality if a "Queer" got arrested: just for being who they are. Being arrested was a fear Jess lived with her entire life, not because she feared arrest, but because she feared what would happen next.

How the cop responded to Brandon Teena (All She Wanted by Aphrodite Jones) will not surprise you when you see how the cops have exploited and violated "Queers" for years. It's their job. It's part of what we, as taxpayers, pay them to do.

The brutality of hate and oppression is part of the cultural conditioning of all "real men" that we, as taxpayers, pay our educators to nurture in our children. I wonder if we, as taxpayers, are creative and caring enough to make it stop.