This Has Always Been a War

by Lori Fox

Capitalism has infiltrated every aspect of our personal, social, economic, and sexual lives. By examining the politics of gender, environment and sexuality, we can see the ways straight, cis, white, and especially male upper-class people control and subvert the other—queer, non-binary, BIPOC, and female bodies—in order to keep the working lower classes divided. Patriarchy and classism are forms of systemic violence which ensure that the main commodity of capitalism—a large, disposable, cheap, and ideally subjugated work force—is readily available. There is a lot wrong with the ways we live, work, and treat each other.

In essays that are both accessible and inspiring, Lori Fox examines their confrontations with the capitalist patriarchy through their experiences as a queer, non-binary, working-class farm hand, labourer, bartender, bush-worker, and road dog, exploring the ugly places where issues of gender, sexuality, class, and the environment intersect.

In applying the micro to the macro, demonstrating how the personal is political and vice versa, Fox exposes the flaws in believing that this is the only way our society can or should work. Brash, topical, and passionate, This Has Always Been a War is not only a collection of essays, but a series of dispatches from the combative front lines of our present-day culture.

Genres: Nonfiction, Queer, Memoir, LGBT, Essays, Feminism, Politics

224 pages, Hardcover

Published May 3, 2022

Reviews

[Care · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a hate-the-rich working class nonbinary queer living in the Okanagan where many of the stories in this collection of stories/essays take place, I loved this. So many of their thoughts and ideas resonated with me though our experiences are different mostly because I have a supportive family who also lives in the area. That's all the difference between this person's rough go and me -- the only thing keeping me from lapsing on rent and living in the woods in a mouldy camper is my support network that allows me to eke out a living for rent in the elitist Kelowna. I have so much more in common with the fruit pickers and unhoused folks than the people with houses up on the hill.

The community in which I was born and raised does not want me here nor make it easy or comfortable for me to stay (though they really need me here to do the work that makes this city run).

If you want to learn more about the war against the working class, this is a manifesto for our generation.


"What if working-class people just stopped working? What if we refused to build the buildings and grow the crops and bring the coffee and fix the machines and drive the cars and cook the food? What if we refused to pay our rent or our loans with the impossible interest rates, or to give up our cars and houses and possessions when the banks came to take them? What if we refused to let the upper classes have so much more than us, and told them that they couldn't anymore? What if we, the people, the working-class people, the poor people, just walked into the houses of the rich, the nice houses with the polished floors and the steel appliances and said this is ours now -- it always was?"

"The conditions in which we live, with low wages, a crippling housing crisis, a shortage of time, of freedom, of light, are posed as a result of a moral failing on our behalf, not of a system designed to exploit our labour, time, environment, and bodies for as little compensation as possible.
Serve us or starve.
Work or be evicted.
Obey us or live in misery.
What part of that sounds like a choice?"

"If the rich will not give us what is ours -- if they will not pay us fairly, if they will not let us eat what we grow, live in the houses we build, and use the energy, goods, and services our hands and feet create in ways that allow us to live good honest lives -- what if we made them? What if we stormed their houses and kicked in their doors and threw the rich people into the streets? What if we turned those seized houses into apartments where many families could live, instead of just one wealthy one? What if we took their farms and their vineyards and their orchards, stopped growing things to sell, and starting growing things to eat so there was enough for everyone? What if we stormed the banks and burned them down, and in their place we laid down sod and planted trees where people could sit and play? What if we called the police what they really are, paramilitary capitalist forces, and seized their stations? What if we turned those stations into medical clinics or libraries or just tore them down altogether, salted the earth, and walked away?"

"In recent years, however, the choke chain capitalism places around the throat of the working class has been pulled tighter and tighter as police and the state attempt to 'correct' dissent, becoming bolder -- even brazen -- in their willingness to violently and publicly suppress the bodies of people of colour and their white, working-class allies...Given these facts, it may be that we have passed the point where a peaceful resolution would be possible. That's uncomfortable to think about."

"Having lived and worked to serve the rich for so many years of my life, I don't think the rich can be reformed any more than a glass of milk, once spoiled, can be unspoiled. A landlord who evicts a tenant who cannot pay, while he himself has a home and many apartments, is a landlord and not a human being, just as a business owner who refuses to pay her staff a living wage and allows them to live in poverty in order to maximize profits is a business owner and not a human being. To free ourselves from capitalism might mean violence, but that violence would be -- is -- self-defence. I'm not calling for war. This is already a war. This has always been a war."

content warnings: Graphic: Violence, Rape, Classism, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Incest, Alcohol, Toxic relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Pedophilia, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Homophobia, Suicide attempt, and Infidelity

Minor: Dysphoria, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Car accident, Self harm, Vomit, and Police brutality

[Frances Krumholtz · Rating 2 out of 5]

i was very interested in reading the book that belonged to this title/subtitle but that was not what this book was

[Boku · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bold and astute, this book takes aim at the culture of capitalism, and all the myriad, sinister ways it picks away at the dignity of the working class. This book will easily be among my top picks of 2022.

[andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

an absolutely gobsmackingly good collection of personal essays pertaining to gender, sexuality, capitalism, the patriarchy, the housing crisis, poverty, mental health, sexual trauma, and getting through it.

i knew this was going to be a banger when it opened with an essay about the author working a job waiting tables to be sexually assaulted by a drunk customer who they poured a pitcher of beer on. that customer went on to call and complain because he felt like HE was the victim. because that's what it's like living under capitalism - our bodies do not belong to us, we're expected to exist at the whims of the people with money and be grateful for what we get.

i really also loved the essay that broke apart women's dystopian literature, designating margaret atwood and her ilk as a self-referential circle jerk of white, cishet feminism.

there are essays within this book that are heartbreaking and incredibly tough to read. please check warnings. there's a lot here related to sexual assault and rape and these stories are so utterly important, but the content was very difficult to read.

a very specific essay in this book - "Call You by Your Name" - heavily details an abusive relationship that the author had with a cishet man. this essay talks a lot about abuse, gaslighting, rape, ptsd, retrauma via police when attempting to report it, etc. it also contains a remarkable amount of apologies from the author to the man responsible for all this hurt. i didn't get it. and it made me very angry to read through it. but...

at the end, we're treated to a special essay - "The Lame One" - about the author reading a copy of the jungle book, about seeing within the characters the dichotomy of a life lead by living with rage and how it breeds toxicity and a life that acknowledges pain but existing with strength and compassion. anger eats you alive. i think this essay really taught me about myself, taught me about how a knife (just like anger) can be used as a tool or a weapon. and it helped me understand why it was important to acknowledge forgiveness against a person that committed so much violence and pain in that other essay.

i don't know, this book really taught me about myself, about the world. also, the marginalia in my physical copy is nutty, i lost count of how many times i wrote "eat the rich" in the margins.

[sophia · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book is like i just peered into the authors soul and saw and felt what they have been through in life. it was such a moving book, however it was very informational at the same time. it had a perfect balance of being about the authors life and how the systems in place are failing the working class (or poor) people. everyone should read this book, i have a new perspective and will hold what i read in this book for a very long time.

edit: i totally forgot something!! this book and the authors life was in canada, all the statistics and places are canadian which i almost have never read a book like this set in canada. it was really cool to see. also because you saw how corrupt canada really is, and how our government is treating working class/poorer people.

[Kevin Warman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lori Fox's "This Has Always Been a War" is vulnerable, snarky, laugh out loud funny, and devastating. I appreciated their strong voice and authenticity throughout. I found myself struggling at times to keep reading, but think books like this one are vital to understanding queerness and systemic violence. Keep writing, Lori.

One of the more poignant arguments is that violence may be necessary to achieve class liberation. Fox contends that violence against the ruling class should be viewed as self-defense. These points evoked my studies of Malcom X and MLK Jr's thoughts on black liberation: can violence in the name of class liberation be viewed as self-defense? If not, can an ethical outcome be achieved if the process involves unethical behavior?

I hope readers of Fox's book read with compassion, curiosity, outrage, and ask themselves how systemic violence should be addressed.

[Wan Feng An · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes all you need to argue against the status quo is a sobering dose of reality. Every essay here is part autobiography, part polemic - from familial issues, struggles with poverty, sexual assault and mental health crises - everything is described in incisive detail and a critical lens. If you aren't radicalised after this book then you may never be.

[Storm · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read, especially if you are white, cishet, able bodied, privileged enough to never have experienced true poverty, or any combination of the above. It will make you uncomfortable to acknowledge your privilege, but will also open your eyes. It will make you angry, and that is good.

“A good life, in which a person has enough to eat and a warm place to sleep and work that is meaningful, in which a person has the leisure to love and be loved, is such a small dream.”

“To free ourselves from capitalism might mean violence, but that violence would be - is - self-defence. I’m not calling for a war. This is already a war. This has always been a war.”

[Andrew Eder · Rating 3 out of 5]

More after bookclub :)

[Madeline · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ughhhh but also at least I’m literate again

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intense. A working-class queer’s memoir—including itinerant day labor, homelessness, abusive relationships, alcoholism, intergenerational trauma, micro- (and macro-)aggressions against gender nonconformity, and more—that never loses sight of the structural causes of working class suffering. A demonstration of Audre Lorde’s analysis that “the personal is political”, and a reminder that we always have the choice to direct our rage away from our communities toward root causes. Through all the darkness and suffering, manages to highlight the moments of love and relationships that lift us up.

“Both poverty and mental health are about lack—lack of money, lack of dignity, lack of work, lack of meaning, lack of stability, lack of love. Treating them as separate issues ignores the fact that something is wrong with the way our system currently functions to create these social, economic, and environmental problems in the first place.”

~~~

Loved every chapter except “Where The Fuck Are We In Your Dystopia,” which I found frustrating bc the author ignores the existence of Octavia Butler, NK Jemisin, Nnedi Okorafor, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Nicola Griffith, Emily Tesh, etc. until near the end, because their existence refutes the point of the entire essay.

Content warnings for sexual assault, incest, animal abuse, queerphobia, substance abuse, mental illness, and suicidality at a minimum.

~~~

Quotes:

* p. 30: “Capitalism teaches us that working-class people are not as important as the businesses their labour creates goods and services for. Likewise, capitalism tells us that if you are working class, you deserve to be working class—and so, by extension, you deserve however it is you are treated, because the people treating you that way are not only your economic superiors, they’re also your moral superiors.”

* p. 32: “attention, I quickly learned, was an unforgivable rudeness to refuse. It is as if little girls are somehow the common property of everyone but themselves.”

* p. 34: “Long before I had the words for it—and let us be honest, in the queer community, we hold our words over heads as talismans of fate or fortune which we believe might somehow save or absolve us—I was a non-binary person. When I eschewed girl things, it was not because I found them inherently more objectionable than so-called boy things, but because I was repulsed by the idea of being viewed as something I was not. I was not a little girl, and I was also not a little boy. I was a little person.”

* p. 51: “A Happy Family is not simply a contented family unit, but a social institution and, more importantly, an object of capitalist desire. […] the idea of the Happy Family has more value (and signals more about the owner) than the actual function of the object itself. It’s a consumer good and, like all modern consumer goods, […] it can be bought. If you are willing to pay the right price. To make the right sacrifices. To stand in the right lines and sign the right papers. To turn your head and look away at the right times. If you are willing, as it were, to play the game.”

* p. 78: “How culpable are we for the ways we behave when we are unwell? How responsible are we for the ways our trauma hurts us? For the ways that hurt can make us hurt other people? I don’t know.”

* p. 85: “All this secrecy and misery, all this abuse and suffering and loneliness, was allowed to continue with one thought in mind: to protect my father, not from himself, which actually would have been useful, but from losing face in the eyes of the world. Why? Because my father was a straight white man in a straight white neighbourhood where you did not question the things straight white men did in their own homes. A king in his castle. […] This kind of father-knows-best mentality of obeying the person at the top of the socio-economic structure purely because he must, by virtue of having been placed there, deserve to be there, is the backbone of the class struggle. […] There are certain systems that benefit when you suffer. There are certain systems that function better when you—when working-class people—are suffering. Patriarchy is one of those systems. Happy people and productive consumers are not the same thing and, in fact, each may need very different conditions in order to thrive.”

* p. 116: “after briefly moving back to Belleville to live (disastrously) with an older woman with whom I was having quasi-romantic, quasi-platonic love affair (I believe this to be a specifically lesbian rite of passage), I moved to Ottawa in the fall of 2006 to attend university.”

* p. 133: “Basically, if you lived wanted to live on Salt Spring and were not rich, you had to work for someone who was. They’d give you a place to stay so that they could make money from you, either by your direct labour, or by renting something to you that, elsewhere, would not be thought fit to live in. You didn’t have a place to live unless you lived to take care of other people’s property, paid for other people’s mortgages. It was an island of the rich and their servants.”

* p. 140: “Not all shipwrecks are physical; there are things that can swallow up what’s inside you as easily as the sea.”

* p. 145: “I was sick, so I was poor. I was poor, so I was sick. I was deeply, deeply ashamed of being both. The cycle felt inescapable. […] A good life, in which a person has enough to eat and a warm place to sleep and work that is meaningful, in which a person has the leisure to love and be loved, is such a small dream. […] I was so lucky, through all this, to have been blessed with so many good friends who loved me and stood with me through so much, even when I did not deserve it. I was not a good friend at that time, selfish and needy. To give to others a dollar or a minute of yourself, you need surpluses, and I had none. I am humbled that my friends saw this and forgave me. I would like to write that it was this great love that saved me, but that’s not true. In the hour you are most alone, all the love in the world is not enough.”

* p. 152: “Now that I’m recovered, now that I have stable work, a place to live, enough to eat, friends, a regular doctor, I feel incredibly grateful for things many people take for granted. I always—still, even now—experience a moment of disbelief at night, when I lie down in my bed with my clean sheets and think, Jesus Christ, this is my bed. […] And yet, with each small satisfaction and each small pleasure, there is the first-hand knowledge that it could all be taken away again. A missed assignment, a misstep in financial planning, an accident, or, worst of all, another mental health episode leaving me unable to work as hard as I’m working now—any one of these could be the end of this respite. // And that’s what it feels like. A brief respite. A grace period. A chinook wind. Something not meant to last. Something to distrust. Something I maybe don’t deserve. Now that I have my life back, losing it again is a fear I may never shake.”

* p. 156: “If, as the old adage says, “health is wealth,” then in this country, health—a full mind-body picture of health, in which care for the mentally ill is treated with the same seriousness as care for the physically ill—is for the wealthy only.”

* p. 157: “It’s worth noting, too, that in order to get care I’ve had to be mentally stable enough to advocate for it; I’ve had to be well enough to make follow-up phone calls, arrange appointments, and discuss my own care objectively, something that very unwell people can’t reasonably do and that I certainly couldn’t have done at certain points in my life. […] Both poverty and mental health are about lack—lack of money, lack of dignity, lack of work, lack of meaning, lack of stability, lack of love. Treating them as separate issues ignores the fact that something is wrong with the way our system currently functions to create these social, economic, and environmental problems in the first place. […] I’m always going to be afraid of losing what I’ve gained, economically and mentally. The hungry days are never really over.”

* p. 161: “sometimes people do things when they are hurt and hurting and afraid that are not about you at all—sometimes people hurt other people just because they are in pain and afraid and don’t have any other language, any other words, with which to express it.”

* p. 172: “I didn’t realize one of the privileges patriarchy gives men is the right to pick and choose what they do and do not want to know.”

* p. 173: “I still do that, you know. Forgive people I shouldn’t forgive. I believe people when they say they’re sorry. I believe them when they say they won’t do it again and then I forgive them and try to move on. I do this because I’m stupid, because I don’t want other people to hurt, because not forgiving people sometimes means losing them forever. I do this, I did this with you, because I always want to believe I mean enough to someone that I’m worth not only saying sorry to, but acting on that regret.”

* p. 182: “In the spring, when everything had first gone wrong, I had tried to run. Now it was fall, and I found that I had not left the things I was running from out in the backcountry. They were there all along, loping behind me, silent and dogged as a coyote, waiting for me to limp to a stop. And now I had.”

* p. 235: “All this to say that, although he was a capitalist and a landowner, the farmer was not an asshole. The farmer was, in fact, very nice. It’s just that he was nice in the only way that rich people who don’t understand the advantages of their richness—and who assume, in some way, that wealth is their right—can be. They can be kind, but their kindness has holes in it.”

* p. 262: “Today, as I write this, the fires are burning again. Ontario is on fire, and British Columbia is on fire. California is on fire and Washington is on fire and Oregon is on fire.

There are fires, now, even now, burning south of Penticton, eating up the grass, eating up the trees. The smoke drifts through cities and chokes people. It hangs like a haze in the air, toxic and miserable. It chokes out the sun.

And I think about those houses high on the sage hills, those houses with their cool marble countertops, with their fridges full of food and wine chilling on ice, with their owners as just as cool and bloodless as their houses. I think about them drinking that wine and gazing down on the valley, impassive, unmoved, as the people who live in that valley suffer in the heat, cough on the smoke, and die. Staring down on the valley as if the fire were not tearing across the earth, swift and angry, moving through the undergrowth, across the fields, along the roads, roaring with the sound of a thousand hungry dogs all baying together in the night.

As if the fire were not moving steadily toward them.”

* p. 274: “I could choose compassion—compassion and wrath. I could be angry, but that anger could be just, and productive. I could do good things with it. I could turn it not on myself, nor even the specific people who had hurt me, but on the reasons had been hurt. […] It would be nice to say I came to this conclusion—that I could choose compassion and wrath over rage and bitterness—and then everything immediately got better overnight, but that’s not how things work. There were many more months of healing ahead of me, of getting up and falling down, of uncertainty and pain and failure. The difference was, though, that now I knew the choice was there: I could break the lock on my own cage at any time. And when I was ready, I did.”

[Savanah Tiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

"To free ourselves from capitalism might mean violence, but that violence would be—is—self defense."  -Lori Fox, This Has Always Been a War

I sped through this book in one day and I've been chewing on it ever since. Here are a few things that stood out to me:

Lori Fox has an exceptionally strong voice.

I agree with other reviews—this is more a memoir than a collection of essays, though chapters can stand on their own. One chapter flawlessly takes you from the author's memory of a coworker teaching them to "walk like a girl," to a queer analysis of the children's movie The Last Unicorn, to a wider discussion on queerphobia and commodification of working-class bodies. 

Their writing is accessible.

There's no condescension (though Fox isn't afraid to hold people accountable for their actions, including, at times, themself). 

They don't shy away from complicated topics.

I don't mean sexual assault, poverty, homelessness, or suicidal ideation, though this book does discuss all of the above. What really impacted me was the way Fox allowed nuance in horrible situations. Without excusing abuse or glossing over their personal trauma, they acknowledge how patriarchy, mental illness, racism, and religious trauma contribute to a culture of violence. Their writing was never one-sided, even when it could have been.

Tldr; If you're looking for a hard-hitting memoir from a queer, non-binary, working-class writer, you've found it: take your time with this one.

[b (tobias forge's version) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Both a brutal and an ultimately hopeful collection of essays about surviving under capitalism as a queer person.

I'll be thinking about the final essay, "The Lame One," for a long time:

"My wrath could be useful, not just to me, but to other people.
I could make my wrath a knife to use however I wanted.
A knife is a tool or a weapon, depending on how you hold it."

[Nikki Deal · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Capitalism is not simply an economic system; capitalism is culture. Specifically, capitalism is our culture. And under capitalism- within our culture- working-class bodies are property.”

“We are told…that this is justice. We are told we have behaved immorally and illegally. We are told that we have made bad choices for which we are responsible. The conditions in which we live, with low wages, a crippling housing crisis, a shortage of time, of freedom, of light, are posed as the result of a moral failing on our behalf, not of a system designed to exploit our labor, time, environment, and bodies for as little compensation as possible.”

[Trinity Locker · Rating 4 out of 5]

as a field worker, service worker and manual laborer this is so relatable and yet shows the painful reality that is not so far away for so many of us. At times the analysis is a bit more like a rant, but it's human and I appreciate it for that.

[Clayton Cheever · Rating 5 out of 5]

This griping collection of essays powerfully delivers a first person account from the hard edge of"modern civilization". Accessible to anyone who has ever worked or interacted with anyone in the service industry (basically everyone) this is a voice we need to listen to. It is remarkable that Lori survived to share this work. I am so grateful they did.

[Ameema S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part memoir, part searing indictment of capitalism, and the ways it benefits the cis / straight / white patriarchy.

Told as a collection of essays that cover a range of topics (from feminist dystopian fiction, to lack of affordable and accessible housing, to revelations found in The Jungle Book) all tied together with the overarching threads of capitalism. It was well researched and informative, but also compelling and engaging.

This book is a searing critique of the systems that make and keep poor people poor, and Fox does a great job of weaving in their personal experience to show the real harm that poverty and capitalism can enact, and highlighting the disparity between the wealthy upper and middle class, and the poor working class. At times crass, and at times profound, this book was thoughtful, sharp, smart, and unexpected. I had a hard time putting it down!

I received a copy of this book from ZG Stories, in exchange
for my honest feedback.

(CW: Sexual assault, violence, abuse, drug and alcohol use/abuse, psychiatric institutionalization, queer phobia, misogyny, needles, graphic depictions of a medical procedure)

[Rohan Myers · Rating 3 out of 5]

herman deserves the world

[Caris · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Having lived and worked to serve the rich for so many years of my life, I don’t think the rich can be reformed any more than a glass of milk, once spoiled, can be unspoiled. A landlord who evicts a tenant who cannot pay, while he himself has a home and many apartments, is a landlord and not a human being, just as a business owner who refuses to pay her staff a living wage and allows them to live in poverty in order to maximize profits is a business owner and not a human being… To free ourselves from capitalism might mean violence, but that violence would be—is—self-defence. I’m not calling for war. This is already a war. This has always been a war.”

I don’t know where to start reviewing this book. All I know is I resonate with the power of Fox’s words. Oligarchs have been waging a war against workers for a long time. Our resistance is, as they say, self-defence. And as Queer people, we cannot address systems of oppression as monolithic. Patriarchy, cisheteronormativity—these are systems which benefit capitalism and make it even harder to resist. I think the best way to summarize this book, from my point of view, is that we, working class Queers, have a more common struggle with our cishet counterparts than with other Queer people who have have never known material struggle. Capitalism needs it the opposite—it needs us feeling united in more passive ways so that we settle with superficial representation and maintain a blind spot to class struggle. But there is no representation without redistribution. There is no queer liberation without worker liberation.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although this book has been described as a collection of essays it really is more of a memoir. The writing is good and evocative and I would have rated it higher if not for the book's penultimate chapter. The tagline is "the radicalization of a working class queer" which had me intrigued about what sort of equitable future the author may be envisioning. I was kind of disappointed that they landed on literal class warfare as a potential solution. I'm personally not convinced that even the most corrupt and vile landlords are so far gone that they cannot be considered human beings. That kind of dehumanization is dangerous and the idea that equality will be achieved by putting them all to the sword and redistributing their wealth to the working class read like fantasy.

[Ems · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some mixed feelings about this one. Some parts were stronger than others. Definitely a bleak picture of how capitalism intersects with patriarchy, classism, homophobia to oppress the working class. I was just wishing the author would touch more on how colonialism works with these systems as well, and how they were also a cog in this machine (making a living foraging for high value mushrooms and picking fruits for rich people on stolen Indigenous land, etc). I empathize with their rage though.
This was also a pretty heavy read at times so check the trigger warnings if you need to.

[Mads · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started off strong, but I became bored by the last half. Not because of the topics or personal views discussed (which I agreed with 99.9% of the time - fuck capitalism), but the repetition of the same events had me skimming pages since I'd already read about it earlier.

Also, a content warning that there is an essay ("Call You By Your Name") where their rape and abuse are discussed in detail. (Unfortunately, I had to skip most of it to prevent triggering myself.)

[antang · Rating 3 out of 5]

more of an autobiography than essays. a memoir….idk! but also moments where it was very white, which is to be expected since the author is white but they tried their best….

[Dani Kass · Rating 5 out of 5]

In terms of solidarity, thinking of the world as those who labor and those who benefit from laborers, is a powerful idea, but 'This Has Always Been A War' really points out what gets lost in that bigger picture.

Lori Fox's book is all about the true working class, or as they put it at one point, those who don't have anything to fall back on if they fuck up. Fox endlessly chases low-wage, unsteady, short-term jobs harvesting morels, cherries, grapes; building mansions for extremely rich people; gardening; serving at restaurants. They do this while going through journalism training and getting a literature degree. They write for a local newspaper and freelance, but it's not enough.

They dig into the restaurant industry, the tipping system, how it encourages intraclass resentment; the lack of queer and working-class women in dystopias for women (ie, 'The Handmaid's Tale'); the hell of finding somewhere to live, eat, shower, use the toilet; something to eat, something to drink; access to mental health care.

The constant insecurity, and its impact on finances, mental and physical health, and life in general, is brutally shown. As are heartbreak and deeply abusive relationships of all kinds. And the absolute essentiality of having a dog, especially when life is in flux.

Fox interweaves memoir and manifesto beautifully, and is clearly always aware of different levels of privilege, because clearly this is a story that exists in so many voices, yet the white voice is the one that makes people pay attention.

"A good life, in which a person has enough to eat and a warm place to sleep and work that is meaningful, in which a person has the leisure to love and be loved, is such a small dream." (p.162)

Very heavy TWs:sexual assault/rape, child sexual assault/abuse by family member, suicidal ideation and attempt, violence, alcoholism, background drug use, abusive relationship, PTSD, detailed fish gutting.

A few other passages:

"How culpable are we for the ways we behave when we are unwell? How responsible are we for the ways our trauma hurts us? For the ways that hurt can make us hurt other people?" (p.88)

"There are certain systems that benefit when you suffer. There are certain systems that function better when you — when working-class people —are suffering. Patriarchy is one of those systems. Happy people and productive consumers are not the same thing and, in fact, each may need very different conditions in order to thrive." (p.96)

"A big difference between the middle class and working class is the cushion to fuck up." (p.141)

"What this is about is the way two people can be hurt by the same system while fighting against the same system, about the way those hurts can turn each person against each other, about how someone can be an enemy and a lover and a stranger and a friend all at the same time." (p.213)

(During SA by a partner): "I couldn't have said no to you any more than I can say no to paying the rent. I couldn't have said no to you any more than I can say no to buying groceries. I couldn't have said no to you any more than I can say no to pulling over for a cop. It's all the same thing: extortion, coercion, dressed up as a decision that is yours to make." (p.234)

[Marlena Beata · Rating 2 out of 5]

a rather uneven collection of "essays" (more memoirs) focusing on the intersection of gender, homelessness, addiction, mental health, trauma and class. I think it would work better if written as actual polemics or maybe was better researched rather than relying solely on authors life.
At times I felt this would work better as a piece of fiction where we can get to know all the characters better and formulate our own opinions on how capitalism and patriarchy affected their choices.
I quite liked that the voice of the narrator was raw and unfiltered but then, especially when reading "Call you by your name" (what a stupid title), I wished the author sought better editing and stopped relying on constant swearing to express their views.

Extract from a letter to the ex-partner:

My god, Lucky. All my fucking gods, you dumb fucking prick.
I knew you had slept with her, but I didn't know she was your girlfriend. I didn't know fuck all about it, and anyway when I'd said do you want to fuck me more than two weeks ago I hadn't meant that you'd just decide out of the blue to try and plow me without so much as a hey, what do you think about this at a party where you'd come with your goddamn girlfriend, you asshole.

(...)

The two men exchanged confused, perhaps even annoyed, glances.
One smiled at me gently and said, in the kind of voice you'd use to speak to a child, that he was sure my boyfriend hadn't mean anything by it, he was sure it was all misunderstanding, he was sure my boyfriend would be sorry in the morning and it would all work out.

The other man nodded. He said I should go home.
He said my boyfriend was probably worried about me.

May their balls blacken and fall off, as shrivelled as raisins. May their prostates swell and split inside them. May their wives cheat on them and give them each a virulent, antibiotic-resistant dose of the clap.

I went back to the camper. There was nowhere else for me to go.

At one point towards the end Lori calls the reader "a joyless shell of a human" in context of being potentially disagreed with.
Maybe that narrative style works for some readers, I found it cringe-worthy at best.

It's a shame this book did not go through a better editorial assessment because it felt like a missed opportunity despite many strengths.

[Sandra Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a series of poignant, autobiographical essays that make a clear case that the author has had many misfortunes and that being poor is awful. The essays also illustrate the concept of intersectionality, as I understand it: when multiple factors (gender, sexuality, mental health), and societal biases about those factors, combine in one person’s life and make “simple” solutions offered by politicians, bureaucracies, or well-meaning but naive people impractical. Anyone who has never heard of or has scoffed at the concept should read this book. The writing is gripping and flows beautifully. The author’s courage in sharing their stories, never mind living them, is unquestionable.

The book is not as logical or well-researched as I expected given the author’s repeated references to their journalistic training. The only clearly suggested solution to the societal problems that enrage the author is violence (there may have been other suggestions but that’s the one that stood out from the anger). There were many untaken opportunities in the book to point out specific actions, attitude changes, or policy updates that have potential to improve the well-being of people experiencing poverty, homophobia, racism, or sexism. Perhaps the point of the book was not to effect change but to enable the author to take another step on their mental health healing journey. If so I sincerely hope that it helped.

[Kay Fur · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a beautifully written book of essays from a Whitehorse local. I must admit, I was intrigued by this book because when I see an article written by Lori Fox, I read it in its entirety 99% of the time. Their articles scrutinize government policies and practices without a hint of political correctness and that's what I love the most.

Lori Fox's essays tackle homophobia, classism and patriarchy and are written in prose that pulls zero punches. They bare their soul, memoir-style, while weaving scathing commentary on the aforementioned capitalist systems. They are real and honest and tough as fuck and I, for one, am glad that they made it through the other side of the many horrendous experiences in their life to tell the tale.

I am rating this 4 stars out of 5 because the only thing that "This Has Always Been a War" left me wanting was some sort of idea of how they see a way to upend the patriarchy and classism of today's society. I understand their desire to "burn it all to the ground, salt the earth and walk away", but there are many people in between poverty and wealth; people that have not had it easy but have built a life from scratch. Maybe these people have had more privilege, yes, and I am one of those people as a cis-female middle-class white woman (I know, my name is Karen which is unfortunate af but doesn't describe how I conduct myself). I may not have lived through the type of poverty described in the essays, but I too have dealt with sexual abuse and addictions and served drinks and food for longer than I care to admit to put myself through university. While I am far from wealthy, at 50 years old I now live a life with all of the comforts which I have worked really hard for. What would you do with someone like me in this war, Lori Fox?

Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and devoured it within a day. Thanks to the author for their honesty and candor and for saying the things that most of us are too chickenshit to say ourselves.

[Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

if you have ever wanted to just feel absolutely enraged at the world after reading a book, may i recommend reading this one? if you're not left feeling like capitalism was the worst fucking invention of all time and we're all just doomed on this struggling planet i don't think you've read this book right. please do check trigger warnings beforehand because this gets very hard and heavy.

this just really made me think about how being poor eats at you every single day, and most of us are just one big (or small) disaster away from becoming poor and we all just have to live our lives every single day with that knowledge and somehow be okay with it and not only that also perform well under it as if we aren't all teetering on the edge of a panic attack or is that just me?

i do feel like the book was trying to be too many things at once. it was a memoir, and a manifesto, and an informative explanation about capitalism but then also an exploration of parental abuse and mental health and sexual assault and also just an essay collection that didn't always feel cohesive and i get that all of those things are a part of the author's live, but i think this would've worked better as just one genre.

[Enid Wray · Rating 4 out of 5]

A compulsively readable book - this was like a personal application of what you learn theoretically in an upper level poli sci or women's studies course. They unpack their life experience… situating - understanding - it at the intersection between the patriarchy, queerphobia, classism and capitalism (those topics that are the focus of their ‘wrath’).

They have you from the get go - starting with a punch in the gut with them being assaulted by a patron at the bar where they are a server. For the first bit it bears a lot in common with parts of the Corey Mintz’s most recent title, The Next Supper. It also bears a lot in common with Cid Brunet’s recent debut, This is My Real Name (also from Arsenal Pulp).

Written in relatively succinct chapters applying a theoretical framework to their life experience, they describe their situation/experiences for the reader, and subject it to just enough political-economic theorising so as not to put off even a reader who has little to no understanding of political economic theory. Anyone will be making the connections.

A great debut…. And a great addition to a still emerging body of critical writing.

[Elliott · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Has Always Been a War gracefully and intimately presents Fox's experiences of poverty, queerness, sexual/domestic violence, generational trauma, non-binary gender identity, familial abuse, and mental illness, all the while applying an intersectional, radical lens. Each essay is well-focused and orients itself around a specific area or time period of their life: their experience in the service industry (“At Your Service”); their relationship with each of their parents, both past and present (“The Happy Family Game” and “Every Little Act of Cruelty”); living as a perpetual renter, never owning their own home, and the rising costs of living (“Other People’s Houses”); and my favourite essay in the entire work, their relationship with an abusive ex-boyfriend and how poverty informed their codependence (“Call You by Your Name”).

By the end of This Has Always Been a War—simultaneously a memoir and a critical analysis of how capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy informed their life experiences—I was left with a breathtaking impression of the many lives Fox had lived. I have to admit: as a lower-middle-class queer Canadian, reading about the ways Fox and other impoverished folks eked a living in the Canadian wilderness as bush workers shocked me. This is a narrative I had never confronted, and Fox’s stories really put my own privilege into perspective.

This is a book I would recommend to absolutely everybody: the intersectional, narrative-based analysis, Fox’s vulnerability, and the captivating and accessible writing makes this an enjoyable and valuable read. I hope it sticks with you as much as it did with me.