Bent

by Teri Louise Kelly

A memoir in her most personal voice, Teri Louise Kelly tells us what it is like to be born in the wrong body.

"Let’s forget the flounce and frills and sugar and spice; this isn’t Cinderella and there aren’t any glass slippers or pumpkins that change into carriages, but there is the simple madness of everyday existence as adequate compensation. And while there may not be many tears, there are tantrums and insane asylums and self-deprecating binges. None of which has anything to do with the most bizarre decision a person could make—changing one's sex—but all of which are central to this tale of outlandish head games with oneself and one’s imaginary self, a three-foot-tall high priestess of mass deception. After all, if you’re going to write a book about changing sex, then why not bend it completely out of shape and give it some balls?"

A surreal, courageous, and compelling account of one person's realization, transition and reemergence, you will not soon forget Bent.

Genres: Memoir, Queer, LGBT

222 pages, Paperback

First published June 27, 2014

About the author

Transgendered author of the memoirs 'Sex, Knives & Bouillabaisse', 'Last Bed On Earth', & 'American Blow Job', the poetry anthology 'Girls Like Me' 'Shedding Sin' & 'BENT'



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Reviews

[S.B. (Beauty in Ruins) · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a strange, twisted, unorthodox tale Teri Louise Kelly has woven here. Abandoning the standard conventions of the genre, she has put together a memoir that initially comes across as nothing more than stream-of-consciousness rambling, but which slowly begins to reveal the threads of a life remembered.

There’s no doubt that style makes for an intensely personal experience, and the reader’s confusion and uncertainly are part of that experience. It’s as if we’re meant to be just as unsure of our place within the narrative as Kelly was unsure of her place in the world around her. She jumps from memory to memory, framing each with the wisdom of experience earned long after the original scene was lived.

Approaching this as a story of gender identity and expression is to do it a severe injustice, and to neglect everything else about her life. If there’s one thing we immediately take from her story it’s that gender is not who we are, but simply a part of our lives. There’s no doubt it describes us, but it doesn’t solely define us. A lot of her life revolves around understanding her gender, and of coming to terms with its expression, but there’s no illusion that her entire life has been spent in pursuit of some gender ideal.

Ironically, some of the most insightful observations in the story come not from Kelly, but from her invisible, imaginary friend, Alice. Initially, it’s unclear just who or what Alice is, whether she’s a real person, an imaginary friend, a ghost, or a representation of some sort of schizophrenic break. Eventually, however, it becomes clear that Alice is both a coping mechanism and a reflection of who Kelly is inside.

“Love cannot kill Alice any more than hate can. The girl has a voracious capacity for passion; and then it dawned on me—the only way to kill Alice was to become her, to grow into her; because then, and only then, could one be consumed by the other—be free—whole.”

There is a lot of darkness to Kelly’s tale, including drugs, alcohol, dysfunctional relationships, thoughts of suicide, and even a stay in an asylum. It’s almost as wearing as the confused rambling of the narrative itself but, once again, it helps to bring the reader into her world and force a sort of emotional connection.

Interspersed throughout the tale (and extraordinarily jarring in the way they jump out of the text) are various quotes from celebrities, famous thinkers, and medical journals. They’re never commented upon, but left to stand as a placeholder in time, something to help illustrate her place in the world and her own understanding.

"Let’s forget the flounce and frills and sugar and spice; this isn’t Cinderella and there aren’t any glass slippers or pumpkins that change into carriages.”

As cover blubs go, few are as honest or as compelling as that of Bent. This is not a fairy tale, not a happily-ever-after tale of transformation, and not an inspirational guide on how to accept your own gender. Instead, it’s the insightful (and often painful) tale of one woman’s journey from discovery to understanding, intimately woven into the story of a life influenced, but not defined, by that journey. It’s not an easy reason, but it’s not an easy journey.


Originally reviewed for Frock Magazine

[Meghan · Rating 3 out of 5]

One day I opened by email to a message thanking me for agreeing to review Bent by Teri Louise Kelly. I looked around my give-me-free-books sites (librarything, goodreads, netgalley), but I'm pretty sure I never requested this book to review. Oh well. I'm never going to turn down a free book -- like the time I got an M.G. Vassanji book randomly in the mail. That was pretty nice.

Okay, but Teri Louise Kelly is no M.G. Vassanji. We have here a rambling and meandering treatise on gender, transgender, drugs, life, writing, poetry, Australia, more drugs, drinking, vomit, first person POV, second person POV, etc., etc., etc. Most of the philosophical component is roughly equivalent to that guy you knew in high school who totally understood Nietzsche and spent a lot of time talking about reality while getting stoned. The gender thoughts are about as deep and very essentialized (girls like makeup, boys like sports!) although there is some glimmer of depth nearer to the end when Teri seems to get away from trying to be one gender or the other, and becomes, in eir words, undefinable. But that's a long road (or read) to get there. Like like Teri trying on different aspects of different genders, this book tries on a bunch of roles: memoir, theory, fiction, experiment, manifesto. Maybe Teri is satisfied with the gender construct e's built for eirself, but Bent doesn't really come up with anything satisfying. It's like reading Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal without the depth, and even a sprinkling of pithy bon-mots can't elevate Bent to where it needs to be to be truly transcendent.

And I feel bad for Teri's kids, not because of Teri's experimentation with gender, but because e seems to walk away from them without compunction. Obviously, it isn't Teri's place to say how eir kids feel, but the flippancy with which Teri discusses eir disinterest in eir kids speaks to the way the book lacks an emotional core. It makes Teri seem selfish. It makes Teri less relatable. If there'd been some sort of self-awareness or critique of eir own actions, then maybe it could be understandable, but treating one's decision to abandon one's family as glib and inconsequential in eir path to become the undefinable person she is, is unconscionable.

Also, you know what's boring, let me tell you about this dream I had last night boring: pages and pages of reading about someone getting pissed or high or wasted again and again and again. Other people's altered consciousness stories are boring. I wish the editors had cut most of the drugged out bits (as well as invested in a proof-reader to catch a bunch of little grammar and punctuation errors throughout).

I don't know. Maybe I'm not the right person to review this book. I have no set philosophy on gender. In an hour, I can go from a liberal feminist interpretation of gender to a radical feminist one to a post-modern interpretation to anarchic. I'm muddled. Bent didn't unmuddle me, but that was hardly its aim. Bent reminds me of some conversations I had with autoethnographers a while ago where the importance is the student's writing of their own story, rather than necessarily the content or the style in which the student writes. I could see studiers of gender analysing Bent for background or colour, but I can't really say it succeeds as a mainstream memoir. But, then again, maybe that isn't the point.

I received a copy free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

[Trisha Roberson · Rating 2 out of 5]

1-3/5 I appreciate the parts where the author genuinely discusses her gender identity. The closing chapter was particularly good  Other parts of the book where the author was describing experiences from her viewpoint, I found had an angry tone or included sexist and anti-Semitic language. I found those parts of the book irritating and disturbing. This is the cause of such a low rating from me, though certainly parts are valuable to read.

I found the writing hard to follow. It strikes me as a stream of conciousness as the topics jump around quite quickly. I appreciated the perspective.

[Eli Barnet · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not a good book. It was hard to get into and when it started getting good she started talking about the concept of autogenophilla (getting sexual pleasure from being trans ).
I would not recommend

[Shay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Belated review of ebook ARC from LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.

I don't quite know what I expected when I requested this book, but what I read when I started wasn't it. This memoir is like a waterfall: it sucks you in and carries you along in a rambling stream of conciousness. I know I'm only getting maybe a third of the pop-culture references (being of the wrong (younger) generation), so many of the layers of meaning are just washing over me unnoticed.

Strangely fascinating, but disjointed and non-linear. I'm finding it difficult to track the progression of the journey, which makes me wonder if there is one, or if it's just a series of moments strung together like rocks along the shore.

[Lesli · Rating 2 out of 5]

This reads like one long, undated, convoluted diary entry. The book is labeled "memoir" when it should be labeled "rambling about life with very little point."

**This was an advanced reader copy won through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.**