The Rib Joint: A Memoir In Essays

by Julia Koets

Exploring the hazy line that can exist between friendship and desire, this memoir-in-essays is a coming out story that chronicles the childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood of Julia Koets, who grows up entrenched in religion in a small town in the South.

In this collection of linked, lyrical essays, Julia Koets writes, “When you date in secret, the pressure is different. You’re weightless. You’re stuck in between jumping and landing. You exist in midair. Your bones start to thin.” Growing up in a small town in the South, Julia and her childhood best friend Laura know the church as well as they know each other’s bodies—the California-shaped scar on Julia’s right knee, the tapered thinness of Laura’s fingers, the circumference of each other’s ponytails. When Laura’s family moves away in middle school and Julia gets a crush on the new priest’s daughter at their church, Julia starts to more fully realize the consequences of being anything but straight in the South. After college, when Julia and her best friend Kate wait tables at a rib joint in Julia’s hometown, they are forced to face the price of the secrets they’ve kept—from their families, each other, and themselves. From astronaut Sally Ride’s obituary, to a UFO Welcome Center, to a shark tooth collection, to DC Comic’s Gay Ghost, this memoir-in-essays draws from mythology, religion, popular culture, and personal experience to examine how coming out is not a one-time act. At once heartrending and beautiful, The Rib Joint explores how fear and loss can inhabit our bodies and, contrastingly, how naming our desire allows us to feel the heart beating in our chest.

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

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2019

Reviews

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

South Carolina writer Julia Koets won the Red Hen Press Nonfiction for this memoir told in essays. The main focus is a girl growing up gay in the south, with themes of the body and the landscape interwoven in various ways. There is intense exploration of female friendship, its permeable boundaries, and how it changes as we age.

It's a quick read, and while I did have a copy from Red Hen Press through Edelweiss, this came out back on November 5, 2019.

[Ashton Dudley · Rating 4 out of 5]

“At the end of your childhood, the oaks will not close behind you. The ditches will not dry up completely. The houses in the South have ghosts enough. The swamps have alligators and mosquitoes enough. The back roads have churches and stray dogs enough. The highway shoulders, bones enough”

[Callum McLaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Rib Joint is a memoir of sorts, comprised of personal essays. These essays explore Koets’ experiences growing up as a closeted queer woman in a conservative, religious community in the American South. In particular, she explores the pain of navigating the murky intersection between friendship and love, desire and self-loathing, and freedom and suppression when she and her female best friend fall for each other.

With clarity and self-reflection, Koets explores the difficulty of trying to reconcile long-held beliefs with newfound emotion, and the struggle to overcome your own ingrained homophobia when you’ve been raised to believe your love is a sin, and that embracing it will see you ostracised from your community. There’s a lyrical, lively quality to her writing style, as she plays with imagery and highlights linguistic parallels. This never bogs down the essays, however, each of them being incredibly readable for all their inherent pathos.

Indeed, there were some incredibly moving passages here. Anyone who has grown up queer is sure to find moments of painful familiarity, but it’s a read I’d recommend widely. My only criticism is the arguable lack of variety in subject matter or tone throughout the collection. It certainly makes sense to have such a clear thematic lynchpin, but with hindsight, I wish I had taken more time to sit with each individual essay. As it was, I felt a few of them did bleed together somewhat, their potential impact diluted to some degree.

Still, this is a little gem I wish I’d seen discussed more. Koets bravely bares her soul in the hope that others will find their own pain reflected there, and feel less alone as a result.

Thank you to the publisher for a free copy via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

[Eilish · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a completely different format from what I'm used to. I've technically read a memoir before, but nothing like this, packed with so much emotion and written almost lyrically. For such a small book, I wanted to make sure I took it all in, and I'm glad I did, because I genuinely fell in love with it from the acknowledgements.

I've marked so many points that stood out to me, whether it was the writing itself, or how much I resonated with a thought. Koets writes so beautifully, in a way that is so raw and real, perfectly crafting metaphors of the body and space and nature to mirror emotions back at you. Here are just a few of my favourites,

'Or perhaps I went back in time, when passion was a verb.'

'Both the object of the organ and the queer person, objectified by the church, represent a pleasure that the church has equated with sin. Too much sound. Too much song.'

'When I laid down to fall asleep at night, I stared up at the fluorescent stars, glad that I could reach my hand up and touch them if I wanted, that I could prove to myself, again and again, that things could exist in the dark.'

Very grateful to have had this shared with me. Thank you 💛

[Yvonne Boon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Captivating poetically written memoir. My favourite essays are: The Rib Joint, How to Ignite, The Organ. Love the last sentence.

[mmmirabai · Rating 5 out of 5]

“i thought that if i said the words out loud, i might never be able to take them back.”

please read this (i related a little too much 😁)

[Laura Sackton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this a lot. The essays are very personal, rarely venturing into the political, or engaging a wider cultural lens. It works well, allowing Koets to focus on her own specific experiences without trying to make any larger points. She writes beautifully about queerness and invisibility, about secrets and closets, but her exploration of all of these things is firmly rooted in her life. She does weave bits of history, pop culture, and religion (the history of organs, Sally Ride, etymology, and anatomy, among other things) into the essays, but she leaves off on any analysis, simply letting disparate ideas and images sit next to each other on the page. It's a style that allows the reader to meander with her through thought and memory as she untangles ideas.

The essays are short, subtle, beautifully written. They focus mainly on her childhood in the South, the intersections of religion and sexuality, and her hidden queer relationships in high school and college. They circle back again and again to one central relationship, which gives the book a sense of cohesion and movement. Each essay stands on its own, but taken together, they tell a moving and complicated story about one pivotal relationship, told from many angles.

[Darcy Jay Gagnon · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a great accomplishment with these essays in how Koets resolves them. I feel like often I found myself maybe a little annoyed by the evasive shifts between these tightly wound threads, often relying heavily on etymology. But then we get to the whitespace at the end of the essay and I feel like anything that wasn't being said then becomes so clearly tied together. It shows a lot of confidence I think-- both for the writer to know she can suspend us within this topics for so many pages, and in the reader in trusting them to follow her through the process. Even still, there are still some metaphors for metaphor's sake versus metaphor for the purpose of reflective work, but overall I found this a unique lens into queerness and faith. Unlike other queer narratives, this one does a great job of portraying her community as perhaps misguided, but not necessarily evil, and I could really feel the heaviness of this narrator reckoning with losing this major facet of her culture moreso than just the concept of faith. It helped me understand that there is more to just feeling betrayed by dogma, but being betrayed by an identity.

[Zac Hyder · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great read! Tightly written descriptions of settings and actions add to the themes that are interwoven throughout the book to give the reader an intimate and beautifully framed window into the author’s life.

This book gets better with additional read throughs because of it’s achronological storytelling. This however does feel like you are reading your way up a mountain of switch backs so make sure you are ready to grow-yourself and challenge yourself to an enriching read before you start this lyrical-prose memoir.

[Rita Ciresi · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s easy to see why Julia Koets’s lovely meditation on the body was selected by Mark Doty as winner of the Red Hen Press Nonfiction Award. My favorite essays in this intriguing and admirable collection include “Astronomy of the Closet,” “The Rib Joint,” “Blood Money,” and “Variations on Grit.” I loved how each essay had its own curious structure and admired the gentle way that Koets nudges us to consider both familial and romantic love.

[Aley Bearden · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really liked the concept of this book, however, I do not care for the way it is written. It was hard to follow at times. I couldn’t stay focused on certain parts of the book. And I felt like it jumped around way too much and I had to work to figure out where I was in the book and which part of her life we were talking about. I wasn’t crazy about the language portions of the book either. It definitely deserves credit for the diversity that appears. But I think that’s about it.

[Alyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Julia Koets does an amazing job of making the reader feel the fear and secrecy of hiding her true self from family, friends, and her religious community. The book is heartbreaking and very transparent. The writing style is varied and keeps the flow of the book steady and interesting, however, some of the metaphors are pretty far reaching.

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Struggling with growing up, identity, cultural mores and religion, Julia Koets shows how difficult it is to grow up. And some have it tougher than others. The unique essay structure took some getting used to but the rest between ideas and memories gave me time to digest what had been presented.

The feeling of fear and loneliness was almost overwhelming.

[alex ✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short memoir packed such a strong punch and is written with lovingly beautiful language. As the name suggests, it will climb through your chest and have a meaningful emotional impact. The book touched on emotional threads that were all too true, and it was just a wonderful collection of essays. I can see this being a book I recommend to people for a long time.

[Meghan-Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

astronomy of the closet - 5/5
variations on drive - 5/5
when pandora was a myth - 5/5
azalea - 5/5
the rib joint - 5/5
variations on falling - 5/5
how to ignite - 5/5
limbo - 5/5
fire house - 5/5
variations on praise - 4.5/5
the organ - 5/5
spectrum - 5/5
variations on moor - 4/5
blood money - 5/5
variations on grit - 4/5
how to leave - 5/5

[Sage · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sapphic love, church trauma, secrecy, coming of age, super poetic but like in a “still able to understand” way - 12/10

This book made me feel emotions and reflect on memories that I hadn’t in a long time. Truly one of my favorite books I’ve ever read (tied for #1 with Miss Major)

I was so sad to finish this book but hopefully Julia puts out more books in the future❤️

[Terri · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this is well written, I feel like I wandered into a stranger's house, and really ought to leave. I didn't finish reading it, see previous sentence, but if you're bi or lesbian, this may be just what you're looking for.

[Rhiannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mesmerizing

[Kat Eaves · Rating 4 out of 5]

I asked a girl for a river, a burn to mark the fire I could not speak.

from one south carolina girl to another thank u, Koets! (even the UFO welcome center gets a shoutout)

[Mak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Girl. Rip my heart out

[Jam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this memoir and Koets’ rhythm as a writer.

[Eloise Griffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite books I have ever read. It’s a hazy, beautiful dream of memory that never loses the reader. It makes me think of an old love song, one filled with sadness but also with care for what once was. Koets writes with raw emotion that pulls you into every scene.

My favorites include Astronomy of the Closet, Azalea, The Rib Joint, Limbo, and Fire House. This book is my favorite nonfiction book I've ever read.