A Recursive Nature

by Denise Conca

In the months surrounding the 2016 election, Cashier, a middle-aged leather dyke living on the margins of a rapidly gentrifying San Francisco, writes a series of letters to her friend Bobby. By turns achingly beautiful, smartly funny and maddeningly self-reflexive, the letters explore the notion of a queer text and tell the story of Cashier’s kink relationship with Bonarh. As Cashier and Bonarh become increasingly invisible in an unrecognizable Bay Area, they engage in progressively brazen and dangerous acts of public sex. As their relationship unfolds and they fall deeper into the realm of majick and obsession, they find an escape from the Bay Area’s oppressive social and economic conditions in their acts of private and public rebellion.

396 pages, Paperback

Published November 16, 2018

Reviews

[Carrie Kiple · Rating 5 out of 5]

An unconventional book in every way; your inner-prude will be illuminated & impressions of crisco cooking oil forever changed. The story unfolds in a letter format whereby the author shares the intimate details of an intense romantic & sexual affair as well as the everyday triumphs,disappointments, drudgery & hilarity of her San Francisco, queer, polyamorous, foreign film watching sober alcoholic life. As the book unfolds, the reader begins to feel they themselves are the intimate friend receiving these personal narratives and, as any good friend, may experience some real concern regarding the other main character of the book: alcoholism. The author is years sober however the condition of the disease & its accompanying depression & irritability plague her and she, herself is continuously mystified she is sober with the help of AA’s 12 step program which she resists & embraces almost daily. The author’s distrust of every single institution & resistance to almost every social norm, drives this conflict- riddled book to the surface of the very world she feels so alienated in.

[Ren · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fears seem endless. My experience is that they are actually finite, 100 forms of fear. If I can just type this one page today I'll at least feel like I did something.

I grabbed this book from the LGBTQ+ section without any information. Then, the book grabbed me. The sex scenes are explicit (and hot, sometimes sad, sometimes magical) but aren't all that kept me reading. I sought the dimensions, confessions, professions of self, relatable truths of life, and reminders of how the world regressed in 2016. The narrator's journey with her fears, sobriety, and sexuality are excellently told.