You Only Live Twice: Letters on Death, Sex and Gender

by Chase Joynt, Mike Hoolboom

"Chase Joynt and Mike Hoolboom here give each other the gift so many people only dream of: ample, unhurried space to unspool crucial stories of one’s life, and an attentive, impassioned, invested, intelligent receiver on the other side. The gift to the reader is both the example of their exchange, and the nuanced, idiosyncratic, finely rendered examination it offers of biopolitical experiences which, in many ways, define our times. I’m so glad they have each other, and that we have this."
– Maggie Nelson



"You Only Live Twice is an intelligent ode to enchantment, to the possibilities that arise in their 'second lives' when all past expectations have been foreclosed."
– Chris Kraus



"The writing is out of the park — strong and surprising, a relay race of brilliant twirling, tossing thoughts back and forth like balletic rugby bros. Joynt and Hoolboom’s dances of disclosure are so courageous and generative, gifts to us all."
– John Greyson



You Only Live Twice is a double-barreled, non-fiction novel co-authored by young trans writer and media artist Chase Joynt and HIV-positive movie artist Mike Hoolboom. Together, and with an assist from the films of Chris Marker, they map out the particularities of what they call "second lives": Chase's transition from female-to-male, and Mike's near-death from AIDS in the 1990s.

YOLT is true fiction, part of the auto-genre wave that includes the diary crypts of Knausgaard, the friendship recordings of Sheila Heti, and the theory-fiction of Maggie Nelson and Chris Kraus.

The unspoken promise was that in our second life we would become the question to every answer, jumping across borders until they finally dissolved. Man and woman. Queer and straight. Only we have two bodies now, the one that gathers sensations and the other one that archives the records. Is it too terrible to admit that we prefer the record, that we find it more reassuring, even more erotic?

Mike Hoolboom is an author and filmmaker based in Toronto. He has written four books, received more than thirty international film prizes, and enjoyed nine international retrospectives of his work.

Chase Joynt is a Toronto-based moving-image artist and writer who has exhibited his work internationally. He recently received a Mellon Fellowship in Arts Practice and Scholarship at the University of Chicago.

Genres: Queer, Transgender, Nonfiction, LGBT, Memoir, Essays, Gay

140 pages, Paperback

First published April 12, 2016

Reviews

[Westveil Books · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's been a year at the end of this month since I picked up this title and I haven't finished it yet, so I think it's time to acknowledge that I'm not going to. DNF at 60%.

I had high hopes for a non-fiction memoir by two LGBTQ+ men reflecting on their new leases on life. The idea that they wrote letters back and forth to tell each other their stories over time with the intent of binding it up with a bow as a book at the end is exciting and lovely. The result...

This book is all over the place. There was no attempt to re-sort the letters so that they told chronological stories about these two men. They seem to have been published either in the order the letters were written or shuffled at random. Furthermore, while one of the men (I don't remember which at this point) was writing a genuine, raw story from his past told to a friend in conversational language, the other was consciously trying to novelize his story and it made those segments feel less genuine.

This was a slog that I've been dreading returning to, so I won't.

[Wes · Rating 5 out of 5]

The second I finished it I wanted to pick it right back up again and start over. This short collection of letters between two men—one trans, one HIV positive—holds so much. It’s a beautiful exploration of bodies, identity, desire, relationships (and more) that ties together theory and lived experience so impressively. A must read.

[Remy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two queer men, one HIV positive and one trans, bond over the death of a mutual friend and begin writing each other letters sharing and comparing their experiences of their lives, which they find consist of a past life, a type of "death," and a second life. Beautiful and deeply emotionally intimate. I loved this book.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intensely good

[Justlesa Hall · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really liked the formatting but I felt like the topics were all over the place

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly a slog for me.

[willowdog · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written. Loved the format of two real filmmakers meeting on their way from a funeral of a significant filmmaker and start a relationship—one transgender, the other HIV+--in that each feels that they have embarked on a second life. One after transition, one after HIV+ diagnosis. They embark on writing a series of letters discussing their histories, families, feelings, ideas, films place in their world, and relationships. At times wonderfully amusing, and at other times thought-provoking.

[dimwig · Rating 4 out of 5]

there's an awful lot going on here. if it's not quite the revelation that some of its intertexts are, or were, to me—sans soleil, la jetée, the argonauts, etc.—it has something very particular and personal going on that is rare and precious and, by the end, pretty unsettling as well.

[Shea Buckley · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all time favorites. This book is, in a sophisticated yet simple way, a relationship between two men—which is beautiful to bear witness to. I could read, read again, read again, and read yet again and still take away deeper nuances with each time through.

[Senia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly thoughtful and interestingly curated. The book is a series of intimate and insightful letters between the two authors.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best bit of memoir/nonfiction/focused rambling I read all of 2016. It is rare such honesty is said so clearly, but leading to such complexity.

[Senia · Rating 5 out of 5]

The exchange between the two of them is both poignant and tender.