Cut Away

by Catherine Kirkwood

Cut Away is a novel that expertly entwines the lives of three characters struggling to understand the meaning of identity and its seeming mutability. Orbiting around the mystery of a missing teenager, a trio of narrators each tells her story in turn. Alexandra is a transgendered woman who has refused surgery and abandoned Los Angeles for a trailer at the desolate Salton Sea. Asa, the mother of the runaway, wants her grief-ridden face completely transformed. Eleanor, a plastic surgeon, is fascinated with surfaces and wonders whether visual harmony has the power to change what lies beneath. In a culture obsessed with transforming the body, do the incarnate fictions we create have the power to hide or reveal the truth of who we really are? This is a question that Catherine Kirkwood approaches in a stunning debut novel of desire, self-loathing, and the revisionary madness of our modern world.

Genres: LGBT, Gender, Queer, Fiction

152 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Barb Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Catherine Kirkwood's new novel, CUT AWAY, is set in the California desert as well as in L.A. Against this stark landscape, four characters--a lesbian plastic surgeon, a transsexual woman, an unstable mother and a runaway daughter--all get a bit of an existential makeover. On first glance this might seem the material of a ha-ha reality program. Not so. Not even a little. In Kirkwood's steady hand, questions of identity and beauty are brought delicately to the fore by way of character, each of which seems familiar and fresh at the same time. It's as though the author has taken someone we all know and drawn her while looking through a high-powered lens of compassion that yields a portrait with fresh angles. Who is that, we wonder. Are we really so different?

This is a spare novel, and its barren landscape makes the messiness of life pop. What we think we need, what we think we want, how we stumble trying to get them both, this is what the characters struggle with here. Psychologically astute and cinematically rendered, the arduous metamorphosis of these characters will be with you long after the story ends.

[Margaret Karlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

THAT NO MATTER OUR GENDER OR SEXUAL PREFERENCE WE ALL SHARE COMMON PROBLEMS.

[Jim Tilley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned of this book when I found out that I was slated to read with Catherine Kirkwood at Elliott Bay Book Company. I wish I had found the time to read it before our joint reading because it would have been lovely to congratulate Catherine in person.

Great title, great story. I’m impressed at how it was crafted around a run-away, who makes little more than a cameo appearance in the book. There are three POV characters. After reading the first three chapters with Alexandra’s and Eleanor’s alternating points of view, I was anxious about having to engage yet another—Asa's. But, for me, that proved the most interesting and the ending would not have been possible without Asa’s long chapter.

I found the writing and the storytelling powerful. All three characters were exceptionally well drawn. I’m usually attracted more to stories that have a significant plot thread, that do not rely almost exclusively on character development, but this was certainly an exception to my rule. Kirkwood cut away at the whole gem of identity to expose different facets. To sum up: Very well done.

[jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

i have been remiss in not reviewing this immediately and now unfortunately i won't be able to remember the characters' names. there are four stories. they all center around the disappearance of a teenage girl. in reality, they all center around the body, more precisely the female body. one of the protagonist is a lesbian plastic surgeon with a flawless house which however gives much anxiety, a passion for her job, and an empty and broken heart. another is a transsexual woman who refuses surgery and finds the very idea horrible and offensive. she has, i think, the best chapters. she loves her "female" body. she loves who she is and is at peace with herself and others. she doesn't seem ready for love. there is a void at the center of her, but for some reason this void doesn't hurt her. finally, there is a woman whose body alterations are essential to her; they are maybe a punishment. the surgeon had to deal with the ethical and psychological dilemma of going along with this person's desire to change and re-change her body, or tell her she's beautiful as she is, please stop. this dilemma is not done as much of, i think, as it should have.

i am not sure what this book is getting at, which is good. i wish the women had found each other a bit better than they did find each other. i wish they had broken their shells and found community and solace with each other. i wish they had found love. maybe they did, a little. but there is also a lot of loneliness, and love never breaks the surface.

i recommend this book. i gave it three stars because it's slight and could have been developed a lot more, but there is something very tender and magical and sweet about it, and it's a "queer" book that does not put "the issue" of queerness front and center but deals with it as another of the things, like desire, that plague the human heart.

the book's strong stance against reassignment surgery might offend someone, but this is brave, too. there is no bowing to orthodoxy here, just a desire to get inside people's skins (literally, it turns out) and see what lies beneath. some lovely rendition of southern california, too. made me miss L.A.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

How to describe? The faces she presents are intoxicating but the characters free us from who other people think they are. Fine detail, riveting read. A guy tried to kiss me with three dykes in the room, and I just can’t deal with that. Being born one way and molding a carapace to suit one reptilian form, and changing like a chameleon to suit another spirit, magic as a dragonfly. Metamorphos, awakes, and Olivia wants the scalpel to release a cocoon she’s been awaiting for and to awaken as much as Gregor Samsa wanted to go back to sleep. Guess it doesn't hurt that I heard her read at Hugo House. Well done. Well done.

[Coffeeboss · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mystery is not really my genre, but this was an efficient, well-written character piece about the lives of three women intertwining. One, a young, beautiful woman who has disappeared. Another, a lesbian plastic surgeon who takes a personal interest in the mystery of the missing girl. And another, a transgender woman whose slight connection to the girl brings her into the life of the doctor. I quite liked the writing style, and thought it painted a very evocative picture of the strange wasteland of the Salton Sea (not to mention hoity-toity L.A.).

[Trent · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nominee for the Edmund White Award for (LGBT) Debut Fiction, it tells the interwoven stories of 3 people: a MTF transsexual (who has stopped short of gender reassignment surgery); a plastic surgeon whose lover recently left her; and the mother of a missing girl who interacts with the other two women, who each briefly knew her.

[Simon · Rating 2 out of 5]

The little synopsis of the book on the back cover was what really sucked me in, but overall I felt the book really had very little to do with what it was said to be about, or really much of anything. The characters were certainly interesting, but there didn't seem to be much plot or achievement. Well-written, but ultimately empty like the desert it takes place in.

[Mariana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I met the author at Flight of the Mind, a writing haven for women and we were both part of an on-going writing group for years. So she’s a writing buddy who has ctafted this fascinating tale about gender identity, women and plastic surgeons.

[Mary Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intriguing short novel with a smart, compelling, and complex set of characters. The writing was quite beautiful and the setting was richly textured. I read it very fast, and immediately wished for more Catherine Kirkwood fiction to follow.

[Eloise Klein Healy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I published this book under my imprint with Red Hen Press, Arktoi Books. So, I am slightly prejudiced about Cathy Kirkwood's work. It is a very memorable cast of characters, very memorable.

[Rachel Contreni Flynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A compelling read. The characters were finely written, the language concise yet rich.

[reed · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like two and a half stars. I got about halfway through and just didn't care enough to finish. Interesting characters and setup, but nothing happens.