"The first nice thing I ever did to my body was tear it open."
Reading this book wasn't the first nice thing I've ever done for myself, but it may be among the best. Jarboe's writing is queer and unrepentant, gay and unashamed. These stories gnawed on me, and I came away feeling holy--or maybe just full of holes, hard to say.
— From KitIn this debut collection of body-horror fairy tales and mid-apocalyptic Catholic cyberpunk, memory and myth, loss and age, these are the tools of storyteller Jarboe, a talent in the field of queer fabulism. Bodily autonomy and transformation, the importance of negative emotions, unhealthy relationships, and bad situations amidst the staggering and urgent question of how build and nurture meaning, love, and safety in a larger world/society that might not be "fixable." Winner of the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror.
