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The Surrender
How do we come to know the nature of our own desires? How do we give ourselves permission to do the things that everything in our world tells us are expressly forbidden?
The Surrender is Scott Esposito’s “collection of facts” concerning his lifelong desire to be a woman. It is a book that asks just what we mean when we say the word gender—what separates male from female, and how we gain access to those things that make us feel who we truly are. It is also a book about desire—how we come to know the true nature of our needs, and how we find the ways to fulfill them. In these three linked, genre-defying essays, Esposito chronicles his life-long dialogue with his desires, coming to know them better and better through the life-saving moments that came to him as though by grace: the films and stories, dreams and insights and kindnesses that have given him the courage and the understanding to delve deeper and deeper into this lifelong inquiry.
The Surrender is Scott Esposito’s “collection of facts” concerning his lifelong desire to be a woman. It is a book that asks just what we mean when we say the word gender—what separates male from female, and how we gain access to those things that make us feel who we truly are. It is also a book about desire—how we come to know the true nature of our needs, and how we find the ways to fulfill them. In these three linked, genre-defying essays, Esposito chronicles his life-long dialogue with his desires, coming to know them better and better through the life-saving moments that came to him as though by grace: the films and stories, dreams and insights and kindnesses that have given him the courage and the understanding to delve deeper and deeper into this lifelong inquiry.
- GenresMemoirLGBTNonfiction
113 pages, Paperback
First published March 31, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 2, 2017
This was an intensely personal read for me. A review will be forthcoming. https://minorliteratures.com/2016/07/...
May 1, 2017
"My aspirations and neuroses are beginning to solidify" (9), Scott Esposito writes early on in The Surrender, an account of his lifelong desire/obsession/yearning to express himself as a woman. In three brief essays -- "Skirmishes," "The Last Redoubt," and "The Surrender" -- he explores his childhood liking for panties and curiosity over bras, his hesitant admissions of this alternate lifestyle to girlfriends (and a few others), and, after much struggle and agonizing, to writing about this and stepping out of his home onto the street in his newly public guise:
"On the evening I at last found that I could walk [in the neighbourhood], it was because I felt beautiful. I had become convinced of my mastery over the techniques used to make myself lovely. When I looked into the mirror and felt confidence fill me I decided to take just one photo of myself... I saw a woman. I could not find a single thing wrong with her. I was beautiful. I imagined that this must be what a woman feels when she is supremely confident in her presentation, to feel so enviable and desirable.... I wanted to be gazed upon with admiration and lust, to know that I was responsible for the curiosity and envy that only a woman can evoke." (102)
It sounds a bit smug, no? A perfect woman is about to enter and disturb a world filled with complete strangers. Then comes the next line: "When I stepped out of the front door, all of this great confidence turned to witless fright... I began to stride away from my door, and I knew that with each step my margin of safety diminished." (102) As in earlier passages, Esposito reveals a false sense of security, or grasp of knowledge, only to have events, actions, and people rob him of his footing. He bravely carries on, not solely out of bravery, though that may sound paradoxical. He keeps walking as a woman because there is nothing else he had wanted to do: "This was the greatest freedom imaginable." (104) Even that sounds a bit safe, until it's undercut again: "On that September evening, the route I walked was one I have taken innumerable times. It has always been a safe route... But that evening it was different... I felt a new sense of vulnerability.... If anything should try to catch me unawares, my first response would be to scream." (104-105)
In "Skirmishes" we read of Esposito showing his mother, at the age if 14, that he liked to cross-dress. The exchange is tense, and it is, as expected, significant for much of what follows. It is also, like much of the book, sensitively written, yet with a certain reserve: emotions are presented, recollected not in tranquillity, but in the light of two themes, one that is evident from early on, and one that arises late in the book: the pursuit of freedom, and the release of fresh memories and feelings from his childhood when he finally is able to be whoever he wants.
Between 2002 and 2006 Esposito tried several times to tell the unnamed woman he lived and had adventures with about his "ache" (35). As he says in the last pages of "Skirmishes": "These conversations failed because I was not yet prepared to claim my freedom. I had hoped that she would give it to me." (36) "The Last Redoubt" follows the admission that he is not strong enough, yet, to claim by himself who he fully wants to be. "I must get this essay right," Esposito declares. "Each word that I put down becomes a part of my living memory--in a very real sense this is self-creation--and that first cut is always the deepest. Yes, it is possible to work around the scar later on--to revise, reformulate, rediscover, redirect--but that first attempt is decisive. Everything grows from those initial, indelible words." (41)
Scar, cut, and the words used for writing and revising; so much hinges on perfection. (We are left in the dark about the implications of this surgical language, as we are over what will happen if "admiration and lust" are shown. Maybe these things will be explored in a second book.) Esposito is known as a critic, essayist, and curator/editor of The Quarterly Conversation, among other things. Here, his life choices merge, as illustrated in "The Surrender" when, after various pivotal episodes, he mentions what he had been reading at that time. One example: "In that year [2012], the year of my decision, I was reading Cigarettes by Harry Mathews, Barley Patch by Gerald Murnane... the essays of Georges Perec, and He Who Searches by Luisa Valenzuela." (89)
Beyond the carefully crafted statements of sentiment, some so carefully done they appear fragile--a break might remain in the reader's mind like the scar above--there is what I would term the Imperative, a greater power just beyond Esposito's ability to grasp or to put into words. Here are three sample passages that refer to it:
"I could feel the salutary effects of submitting to its desires." (106)
"So many times have I reached some subjugation far greater than I would have thought possible, knowing not so far in the future there would be one thing more." (107)
"Its animating force is not for you to ever know." (108)
This seems entirely fitting for a journey that, though it extends from his youngest days, has not been completed. With his fondness for indeterminacy, it's not surprising that Scott Esposito believes he has "...not yet seen these incidents resolve into a story." Further, "I will never see them resolve into a story." (108) As readers, we can hope that he continues his exploration and, from time to time, tells us what he's found, in the same quiet prose that does not muffle his anxiety so much as keep it from overwhelming the narrative.
"On the evening I at last found that I could walk [in the neighbourhood], it was because I felt beautiful. I had become convinced of my mastery over the techniques used to make myself lovely. When I looked into the mirror and felt confidence fill me I decided to take just one photo of myself... I saw a woman. I could not find a single thing wrong with her. I was beautiful. I imagined that this must be what a woman feels when she is supremely confident in her presentation, to feel so enviable and desirable.... I wanted to be gazed upon with admiration and lust, to know that I was responsible for the curiosity and envy that only a woman can evoke." (102)
It sounds a bit smug, no? A perfect woman is about to enter and disturb a world filled with complete strangers. Then comes the next line: "When I stepped out of the front door, all of this great confidence turned to witless fright... I began to stride away from my door, and I knew that with each step my margin of safety diminished." (102) As in earlier passages, Esposito reveals a false sense of security, or grasp of knowledge, only to have events, actions, and people rob him of his footing. He bravely carries on, not solely out of bravery, though that may sound paradoxical. He keeps walking as a woman because there is nothing else he had wanted to do: "This was the greatest freedom imaginable." (104) Even that sounds a bit safe, until it's undercut again: "On that September evening, the route I walked was one I have taken innumerable times. It has always been a safe route... But that evening it was different... I felt a new sense of vulnerability.... If anything should try to catch me unawares, my first response would be to scream." (104-105)
In "Skirmishes" we read of Esposito showing his mother, at the age if 14, that he liked to cross-dress. The exchange is tense, and it is, as expected, significant for much of what follows. It is also, like much of the book, sensitively written, yet with a certain reserve: emotions are presented, recollected not in tranquillity, but in the light of two themes, one that is evident from early on, and one that arises late in the book: the pursuit of freedom, and the release of fresh memories and feelings from his childhood when he finally is able to be whoever he wants.
Between 2002 and 2006 Esposito tried several times to tell the unnamed woman he lived and had adventures with about his "ache" (35). As he says in the last pages of "Skirmishes": "These conversations failed because I was not yet prepared to claim my freedom. I had hoped that she would give it to me." (36) "The Last Redoubt" follows the admission that he is not strong enough, yet, to claim by himself who he fully wants to be. "I must get this essay right," Esposito declares. "Each word that I put down becomes a part of my living memory--in a very real sense this is self-creation--and that first cut is always the deepest. Yes, it is possible to work around the scar later on--to revise, reformulate, rediscover, redirect--but that first attempt is decisive. Everything grows from those initial, indelible words." (41)
Scar, cut, and the words used for writing and revising; so much hinges on perfection. (We are left in the dark about the implications of this surgical language, as we are over what will happen if "admiration and lust" are shown. Maybe these things will be explored in a second book.) Esposito is known as a critic, essayist, and curator/editor of The Quarterly Conversation, among other things. Here, his life choices merge, as illustrated in "The Surrender" when, after various pivotal episodes, he mentions what he had been reading at that time. One example: "In that year [2012], the year of my decision, I was reading Cigarettes by Harry Mathews, Barley Patch by Gerald Murnane... the essays of Georges Perec, and He Who Searches by Luisa Valenzuela." (89)
Beyond the carefully crafted statements of sentiment, some so carefully done they appear fragile--a break might remain in the reader's mind like the scar above--there is what I would term the Imperative, a greater power just beyond Esposito's ability to grasp or to put into words. Here are three sample passages that refer to it:
"I could feel the salutary effects of submitting to its desires." (106)
"So many times have I reached some subjugation far greater than I would have thought possible, knowing not so far in the future there would be one thing more." (107)
"Its animating force is not for you to ever know." (108)
This seems entirely fitting for a journey that, though it extends from his youngest days, has not been completed. With his fondness for indeterminacy, it's not surprising that Scott Esposito believes he has "...not yet seen these incidents resolve into a story." Further, "I will never see them resolve into a story." (108) As readers, we can hope that he continues his exploration and, from time to time, tells us what he's found, in the same quiet prose that does not muffle his anxiety so much as keep it from overwhelming the narrative.
July 22, 2016
Complex and often contradictory, The Surrender is a collection of essays – as Scott Esposito insists, not a memoir – that accounts for the impact of society’s convenient aggregations of gender on personal identity. Language plays a critical role in the public defining of gender and codifying of appearances, and The Surrender documents the search for a volume of words to approach an innate being within that societal artifice. http://www.full-stop.net/2016/06/16/r...
August 1, 2016
"I understood that I had learned to shackle what was innate. I had done this for the sake of unanimity and accord. And now I knew that I had no need to feel unanimous, no need to accord with the social forces around me. My true state was a mixture of genres."
April 27, 2019
part confession, part statement of purpose, part art criticism - this is one of the best books on transgender experience i have ever read. a profoundly personal reflection on esposito’s gender, although I find myself confused that reviews both within and outside of the book seem to misgender esposito - even on the cover. is this intentional, or a glaring misprint?
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews