Terry Dactyl

by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

From iconic author and activist Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore comes a breathless search for intimacy and connection, from club culture to the art world, from the AIDS crisis to COVID-19.

Terry Dactyl has lived many lives. Raised by boisterous lesbian mothers in Seattle, she comes of age as a trans girl in the 1980s in a world of dancing queens and late-night house parties just as the AIDS crisis ravages their world. After moving to New York City, Terry finds a new family among gender-bending club kids bonded by pageantry and drugs, fiercely loyal and unapologetic. She lands a job at a Soho gallery, where, after partying all night, she spends her days bringing club culture to the elite art world.

Twenty years later, in a panic during the COVID-19 lockdown, Terry returns to a Seattle stifled by gentrification and pandemic isolation until resistance erupts following the murder of George Floyd, and her search for community ignites once again.

In propulsive, intoxicating prose, Terry Dactyl traces an extraordinary journey from adolescence to adulthood, delivering a vital portrait of queer identity in all its peril and possibility.

Genres: Queer, Fiction, LGBT, New York, Historical, Transgender

Unknown Binding

First published November 1, 2025

About the author

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is the award-winning author of The Freezer Door, a New York Times Editors’ Choice, one of Oprah Magazine’s Best LGBTQ Books of 2020, and a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. Winner of a Lambda Literary Award and an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book, she’s the author of three novels and three nonfiction titles, and the editor of six nonfiction anthologies, most recently Between Certain Death and a Possible Future: Queer Writing on Growing Up with the AIDS Crisis. Sycamore lives in Seattle, and her new book, Touching the Art, will be released on November 7, 2023.

Reviews

[Alwynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Genderqueer activist and author Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore’s memorable novel follows a trans woman Terry Dactyl from childhood through to her late forties. Terry’s life history becomes a chronicle of aspects of queer culture but it’s also a portrait of an America increasingly in crisis. Terry’s existence is bookended by trauma. As a ten-year-old, based in Seattle, she witnesses the disappearance of many of her mothers’ friends, lost to the effects of AIDS. Her lesbian mothers struggle to support the sick and the dying members of their found family. Terry later moves away to New York, she starts then abandons a degree reeling from the aftermath of a devastating event, later she finds a foothold within New York’s drug-fuelled, queer club scene. There she meets and falls in love with the mesmerizingly glamorous Sid Sidereal, becoming part of Sid’s tight-knit circle. And, by happenstance, Terry lands a job in an upmarket gallery, mentored by its wealthy owner. But death returns to fracture Terry’s relationship, and eventually she moves back to Seattle. There in the midst of the Covid pandemic, Terry undergoes a political awakening and experiences an epiphany of sorts about herself and the true nature of contemporary America.

There are dips and troughs but overall Sycamore’s restless, episodic narrative is remarkably powerful, deeply moving, strikingly compassionate. Sycamore’s style shifts to mirror characters’ mood and settings. Frenetic club scenes are represented through a series of long, sinuous sentences; quieter moments communicated in a more conventional, disciplined manner. Stretches of lyrical prose are intermingled with passages throbbing with kinetic energy. And there are numerous, curiously beautiful sections – even when they’re dealing with profound loss and grief. Terry’s isolation and alienation intensify during Covid but her engagement with the Black Lives Matter protest movement in Seattle brings out both her inner rage and power. There are fairy tale aspects to Terry’s story – particularly in relation to her economic situation. There are times too when Terry’s responses to the repressive society all around her, institutionalised racism, rampant queerphobia, can seem too much about her and not enough about the underlying issues. The portrayal of her mothers’ creeping conservatism is a little too convenient a contrast to Terry’s growing, iconoclastic activism. There’s a slight danger that the juxtaposition may reinforce ageist stereotypes – certainly the swathes of older protestors in Britain who’ve been persecuted and imprisoned for their support for organisations like Extinction Rebellion and for Palestine-related causes contradict the notion that ageing somehow equals political compromise/inertia. But still, this is a gripping piece both urgent and intimate, quietly commemorative. Sycamore really brings to life New York’s queer culture, the contradictions of the art world; as well as the day-to-day of Seattle’s counterculture during a particularly turbulent era.

Thanks to Edelweiss and publisher Coffee House Press for an ARC

[Maddie]

I marked this book as “To Read” 11 months ago…. And now I finally have the ARC!!!!!!! 💗🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

[shayna · Rating 4 out of 5]

eARC review 💊🌈🪩
pub date: november 11, 2025

thank you so much to coffee house press and mattilda bernstein sycamore for this eARC!!

terry dactyl by mattilda berstein sycamore is a queer fever dream you can't wake up from. we follow terry, a trans girl being raised by 2 lesbian moms in the 80s. she doesn't just fall into the club kid scene, she's surrounded by it. the dancing, the drugs, the music, the dressing up. reading this felt like falling into an inner monologue on acid. we swerve from gut-punching memories of how the aids epidemic rocked her world, to the isolation we all felt during covid, to the glittery, club kid absurdity that she was comforted by.

i wouldn't say this is a novel you "follow", but one you surrender to. terry moves through grief, joy, identity and politics and we just move along with her. her voice is raw, tender, primal and disoriented all at once. i don't think this book is meant to feel like a safe trip, but is more-so the equivalent of looking in the mirror while tripping and having to face your existence and what it really means to feel alone yet so alive.

terry dactyl isn't for everyone, but she sure is for me and that's all that mat-ters. it's a scream into the void, a glitter bomb in your face and a manifesto disguised as meltdown. i won't sit here and pretend i understood everything, but maybe that's kind of the point honey??

[no · Rating 2 out of 5]

i tried to overlook the cover and the fact that i didn’t like the freezer door, but unfortunately this also sucked, despite seeming as though it might be cool. this was a poorly written and surprisingly vapid book. mattilda bernstein sycamore couldn’t help but spend extended sections of the book telling us how good her self-inserted protagonist’s art and politics and fashion were (spoiler: actually not that good), making for an especially exhausting reading experience when combined with the latter half of the book taking place during the early pandemic. it’s honestly impressive how uninspiring the comparison between the HIV/AIDs and COVID pandemics was. i love queer and trans people but sometimes their books are bad!

[Kat]

comparing the aids epidemic and the covid-19 pandemic is an ambitious task. while i loved terry dactyl as a character, i’m not sure she successfully narrated us through that comparison.

the first half is an incredibly compelling queer bildungsroman based in new york. the drug induced, feverish, stream of consciousness writing style worked very well here. i also loved terry’s found family, i was so attached to everyone and deeply affected by their highs and lows. terry uses human connection and art (and yeah, drugs) to power through this dangerous yet vibrant time for the queer community.

then years later the covid pandemic hits and terry’s anxiety drives her to return to her hometown of seattle, wa (i currently live there so it was actually fun to see some of those neighborhood/apartment name drops. shoutout volunteer park). but the covid pandemic doesn’t allow connection, and terry is left feeling lost and alienated.

i’m actually a bit confused by this change in her character. you’re telling me she dated someone positive for aids, but is a militant stickler for social distancing? you’re telling me the girl who would slap on some googly eyes, glitter, and platform heels, snort a line and then hit the club after her friend dies, now sits at home creating zero art? using her colorful clothes as a suit of armor instead of a form of expression? that doesn’t sound like the terry dactyl i grew to love in the first part.

and then the second half being a pandemic novel to it’s core is disappointing. a pandemic novel needs to have an angle, and this one seemed to want to include literally everything, while still using the feverish narration style. it was so hard to follow. Girl, (lol) i actually feel like jaysun’s search for true connection was a more compelling angle for the second half of the story. I really wanted more detail on that.


tldr i really really wanted to like this one, but the first and second half vary drastically in readability. and overall the comparison of two pandemics was not very successful.

[caro · Rating 3 out of 5]

fastest slippery slope from a 5 star to a 4 star to a 3 star to a 2.5 star rating that i've ever seen

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore’s books are always thoughtful. In this novel, we meet Terry, the trans daughter of lesbian mothers, raised during the AIDS crisis that took the lives of their gregarious, rambunctious friends.

As she leaves home and lands in New York City’s art world , with a caring mentor who hires her the minute she walks into her gallery, we see her experience creativity and success both professionally and personally.

She parties, takes and sells drugs, finds her own chosen family. Yet as the party days wind down and she matures, she makes her way back home to deal with the losses and her own unanswered questions.

Thanks to Edelweiss for the eARC.

[Kitty Stryker · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly dizzying masterpiece, like when you’re a little kid and you spin and spin around until you can’t walk straight anymore. I found myself ricocheting between wishing for such an exciting life and feeling grateful that I spend most of my nights now crocheting and going to bed by midnight. Terry is an incredibly relatable main character for me, sometimes holding up a mirror that made me a little uncomfortable, but I’m glad I didn’t look away. This is an important piece of queer storytelling and I’m really glad I got a chance to read it!

I received this book from the author, no strings attached, but it was an absolute joy to experience.

[JE · Rating 5 out of 5]

If a book leaves me with a new perspective, I generally have a favorable opinion of it. Granted, no book can encompass a community completely, but it can introduce you to experiences that some in that group face. Describing the protagonist, one sentence in the back cover blurb states, "Raised by boisterous lesbian mothers in Seattle, she comes of age as a trans girl in the 1980s in a world of dancing queens and late-night house parties just as the AIDS crisis ravages their world."

There's so much more to this story than that description. The narratives and scenes portrayed in this novel expose you to an ethos of dignity in the midst of what might be viewed by some as undignified living. Seeing the world through the eyes of the protagonist, Terry Dactyl, and those with whom she journeys through her life, you're transported into the fierce, subversive pursuit of self-knowledge, and dignity unbound. (Note: seldom have I seen a more shining example of a strong narrative voice. Wow.)

Sure, there's the clouding of judgment and chaotic disorientation that accompanies substance abuse. But the struggle through these conditions remains tethered to a thread of compassion and belonging we all desire. If I'm writing in abstract terms, it's because I don't want to be too specific. I'd like for other fiction readers and connoisseurs of experience to consume each scene in this latest tome by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore at a pace commensurate with their ability to digest it. It's true for many books like this: if you don't understand a passage, reread it. You'll be rewarded tenfold.

[Raquel · Rating 4 out of 5]

really great 90s>>covid storyline. I hope this heralds more covid novels. Deeply obsessed with the complex sober liberal lesbian moms / drug enthusiast radical genderqueer daughter relationship. I'd love a short story sidepiece of the moms' POV of the first half. (Not in the sense that there wasn't enough of them in the book. Just in the sense that I'm greedy)

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Real Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: From iconic author and activist Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore comes a breathless search for intimacy and connection, from club culture to the art world, from the AIDS crisis to COVID-19.

Terry Dactyl has lived many lives. Raised by boisterous lesbian mothers in Seattle, she comes of age as a trans girl in the 1980s in a world of dancing queens and late-night house parties just as the AIDS crisis ravages their world. After moving to New York City, Terry finds a new family among gender-bending club kids bonded by pageantry and drugs, fiercely loyal and unapologetic. She lands a job at a Soho gallery, where, after partying all night, she spends her days bringing club culture to the elite art world.

Twenty years later, in a panic during the COVID-19 lockdown, Terry returns to a Seattle stifled by gentrification and pandemic isolation until resistance erupts following the murder of George Floyd, and her search for community ignites once again.

In propulsive, intoxicating prose, Terry Dactyl traces an extraordinary journey from adolescence to adulthood, delivering a vital portrait of queer identity in all its peril and possibility.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: It was my world, this one. The AIDS epidemic to COVID...yeah...my adulthood. So no, not the lesbian moms part, and I'm not trans, but it still feels very familiar if not very sweet and happy.

No book about this span is ever not going to center the experience of loss and grief. It was the fabric we cut our lives out of. It takes a lot of moxie to be openly trans, even now when you can imagine your lesbian moms being glad for you that you've found your Self, the real one. Terry never hides her identity. She is herself from giddy-up to whoa. It leads her into the loving embrace of her found family in New York just as AIDS begins scything them with its death sentence for being queer.

Why this is a book made for the run-up to Yule is it's about us who live in loss, who never get to be the happy little homebody, who always yearn for something gone beyond our reach. Its unconjoined nature makes it the right kind of read for a busy and distracted holiday...re-reading a sentence or two is absolutely ordinary in this book's world. What this read offers, in this "festive" season, is the company of someone who survived...without her loved ones. Terry's a survivor in the approving, tough and capable definition; also in the lonely, left-behind definition. As COVID threatens to ravage her world again, she retreats to her home in Seattle.

It's not her home. It's a different place with the same name. I relate...I'm from Los Gatos before Netflix, Austin before Infowars, Manhattan before 9/11. None of my homes are remotely the same as when I was growing into myself there. It was this fellow-feeling that kept me reading the non-linear, mosaic story that followed the vibes of the story not the plan of it.

Certainly an unusual choice to make, going home to weather a storm. I wish I'd been able to spend more time in her moms' company, and wanted some greater theme to emerge from their choices to give Terry's life a more theatrically-defined completeness. I know this story is more the way life is lived: moving from experience to experience while still working out what the hell just happened.

Completely successful on that measure. I'm glad I read the story. But now, please write something from Terry's mothers' point of view, please and thank you, Author Mattilda.

[Sarah Schulman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The historical novel on acid. Terry Dactyl, our new emblematic American, has lesbian parents and is born into the AIDS crisis. So, when she becomes a club kid and moves in with her drug dealer lover, her mothers just want her to be happy. But there is a privacy to Terry that becomes loneliness as she outgrows her context. This existence- between protesting George Floyd's murder, and chatting about a new cruising app called Sniffles- creates a recognition of social absurdity that Mattilda elevates with her iconoclastic stylish beauty into a work that has as much to say about vulnerability as it does about trees, and about time itself. This is a book about consciousness, art and "getting ready" to be part of a world that will never be ready for you.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Terry Dactyl is a trans girl raised by lesbian mums in 1980s Seattle. She moves to New York, becomes a club kid and endures great loves and great losses during the AIDS epidemic.

I liked this in parts and found it hard to read in others. The second half is very much a pandemic novel and an early pandemic novel at that. It was kind of like scrolling my twitter timeline in summer 2020. Not something I’m keen to relive!

I did love how this felt like having a great chat with a brilliant storyteller. You know the kind of person who bounces from one story to the next because they just suddenly remembered something they had to tell you? But it doesn’t matter because they are utterly fascinating? Very that.

Can imagine this being very beloved!

*read via Edelweiss

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the beginning, I was reminded of my reaction to Pages of Mourning due to all the drug-taking, so much drug-taking. When the narrative switches to the (NYC) art world, I absolutely loved it. The ending moves to Seattle to bookend the AIDS epidemic (where and when Terry is a child) with the coronavirus pandemic (and other political events). The character of Terry is a force.


I received this book as part of my Coffee House Press subscription for Fall 2025.

[Venneh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely feels like it's in the vein of autofiction, though I'd have to know more about Ms. Sycamore before I could say that the main character of this novel is a fictionalized version of her. Either way, we get a great novel about a young trans woman searching for connection and intimacy, and how all of that comes to a head during the COVID pandemic. We get shuffled between past and present, NYC and Seattle, art critics and shitty condo neighbors, and the full range of feeling you can get. Pick this up from the library like I did.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Generally I find books that focusing so much on having a character on drugs through a good portion of the book is a cheap way to make a book edgy. I think this pulls it out at times and I get what the author was going for, but probably could have done with some improved organizing of how to tell different parts of Terry’s story.

[electricvehicle · Rating 3 out of 5]

one of the characters is a neon artist- and of course shes a complicated, bitter, jealous kind of girl
nice to read a story with artists at the central.

[Caitlin Holloway · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best pieces of queer writing I've read this year. Bursting with culture, character and contemporary commentary, I couldn't get enough of this book. Terry was a very well written protagonist and the pace of the book was fantastic for a fiction book that read like a memoir.