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A Queer and Pleasant Danger
258 pages
A wickedly funny, fiercely vulnerable memoir about surviving a cult, losing a family, and inventing a radically authentic gender-outlaw self.
What it feels like
Reading this memoir feels like sitting down for a late-night diner conversation with a fiercely compassionate, wickedly funny queer elder who has lived a dozen lifetimes. The pace is brisk and conversational, pulling you through the bizarre, rigid world of high-ranking Scientology into the messy, vibrant underground of gender-outlaw performance art. The author's voice is the star here—irreverent, deeply vulnerable, and entirely devoid of self-pity, even when navigating profound grief and family estrangement. The mood balances the chaotic trauma of cult survival with a warm, defiant joy in self-creation. It is a book that will delight queer readers seeking historical lineage, survivors of high-control groups, and anyone who appreciates a radically honest, theatrical, and triumphant exploration of what it costs to become entirely yourself.
- Mood
- chaotic but warm
- defiant
- intimate
- reflective
- Tone
- irreverent
- vulnerable
- conversational
- wry
- radically honest
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- the cost of authenticity · surviving high-control groups · gender as performance · parental estrangement · radical self-acceptance
- The writing
- Conversational and theatrical, reading less like a formal autobiography and more like a late-night confession from a wickedly smart, deeply compassionate friend.
- The arc
- Moves from the desperate, rule-bound search for belonging in a cult to the messy, liberating, and ongoing creation of a radically authentic self.
- Who it's for
- Queer readers seeking elder wisdom, survivors of high-control religions, and anyone who loves a messy, triumphant story of radical self-creation.
Content notes
- religious trauma
- transphobia
- family estrangement
- suicidal ideation
- cult dynamics
About the book
In the early 1970s, a boy from a Conservative Jewish family joined the Church of Scientology. In 1981, that boy officially left the movement and ultimately transitioned into a woman. A few years later, she stopped calling herself a woman—and became a famous gender outlaw.
Gender theorist, performance artist, and author Kate Bornstein is set to change lives with her stunningly original memoir. Wickedly funny and disarmingly honest, this is Bornstein's most intimate book yet, encompassing her early childhood and adolescence, college at Brown, a life in the theater, three marriages and fatherhood, the Scientology hierarchy, transsexual life, LGBTQ politics, and life on the road as a sought-after speaker.
The ebook includes a new epilogue. Reflecting on the original publication of her book, Bornstein considers the passage of time as the changing world brings new queer realities into focus and forces Kate to confront her own aging and its effects on her health, body, and mind. She goes on to contemplate her relationship with her daughter, her relationship to Scientology, and the ever-evolving practices of seeking queer selfhood.
Description from Open Library.
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