Knot Body by Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch

        In the poem “ Portrait of a Body in Pause,” Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch says they keep “hitting command + F to make sure pain makes up less than 10% of [their] word count.” They then document 22 words that come up frequently throughout the collection that characterize their chronic pain. Knot Body is a little project that is part memoir, part essay, part poetry collection (often prose poetry) that establishes a clear focus that elevates its personal-focus above Instapoet contemporaries.

Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch offers a distinct perspective. Pulling from the bio at the end of the book, I’d note that they are a queer Arab poet living in unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory. While the poems touch somewhat on being Arab, most of the focus is on being trans and living with the chronic pain of fibromyalgia (and also exposing some of the transphobic practices in diagnosis (apparently fibromyalgia is a woman’s disease). El Bechelany-Lynch writes in a conversational style, indeed sometimes with direct address to the audience. Many of the poems start with the line, “Dear friends, lover, and in-betweens” and proceed through an epistolary mode that lends it a personable quality (although the poet notes in one poem that they make a distinct attempt to ride the line of fictionalized autobiography.)

Many of the sections address what the pain is like, how it affects relationships with others, and how it interacts with other aspects of the poet’s identity. The collection is insightful and asks some challenging questions about how we interact with others who have chronic pain and invisible disabilities. The conversational style is sometimes peppered with more explicitly poetic passages, but what the collection does best is offer an account of personal experience. It’s a document in a life that can promote empathy, understanding, and connection. Allow it to expand your perspective.

Happy reading!

Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality by Sarah McBride

 

    I’m going to start this review with a somewhat embarrassing confession. During my undergrad, I went to a screening of We Were Here, a documentary about the 1980s AIDS epidemic in San Francisco. The documentary included personal accounts from those affected by the epidemic, either as caregivers, patients, or partners. While my exact figures are unquantifiable, through about 80% of the film, I wept. I wept so hard I had to leave the theatre to try to compose myself. It was beautiful seeing peoples’ unconditional love and devotion to one another—and tragic to see that love be prematurely tried and ripped away by unpredictable circumstances.

    I’m not sure what led me to read Sarah McBride’s Tomorrow Will Be Different: a personal recommendation? A listicle of books about trans joy or activism? It’s hard to say, but it had much the same effect as We Were Here. Both focus on people who already face unfair treatment and challenges, who persevere and find love despite it all, and who lose that love due to the cosmic injustice of medical afflictions. This book, like the documentary, was heart-breaking.

    Tomorrow Will Be Different has three key terms in its subtitle: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality. Sarah McBride offers each in turn and in conjunction with one another. The memoir recounts Sarah’s early involvement in student government throughout high school and University. It recounts her coming out story, transition, the challenges she faced, and the advocacy she engaged in to help make the world safer, through legislation, for trans rights.

    Each chapter takes a particular focus, but woven through each of the other topics is McBride’s relationship to Andy. The relationship is characterized by its youthful exuberance and enthusiasm. McBride recounts the way they care for one another and the way they fight for change together. Sadly, though, Andy develops tongue cancer at an early age. There are some heart-string-tugging passages where Andy worries about not being able to speak following the partial amputation of his tongue—especially because talking was his main means to making political change. It’s painful watching the challenges they face as a couple unfold, despite there being some beautiful moments, like changing the vows to say, “for ever and ever” instead of “til death do us part.” The moment where he is declared cancer-free is wonderfully uplifting, and when the cancer returns it is devastating. McBride captures the ups and downs, and eventual loss of Andy, with an intimate tenderness that is further enhanced by the fact that she herself narrate the audiobook herself.

    If I have one gripe about the book, actually, it’s that we are invited into their relationship too intimately. Early in their relationship, Sarah and Andy give each other the nickname “bean,” which is presented as a cutesy humanizing detail. Unfortunately for McBride, I’m a curmudgeon and every time that “bean” was written into the book felt excessive—a too-close look into the silliness of a relationship not my own. Later in the book, they refer to each other as “bean” so often at critical moments that it feels like a shorthand for ‘emotional response’ rather than sincere. This is a minor complaint, of course, and one that others might find endearing, but I just didn’t like how close that nickname let us be to the experience.

    That said, I am left nonetheless crushed by the scene in which Sarah loses Andy. They have to have difficult conversations, like whether Andy wants to be maintained in a vegetative state or allowed to pass away. When Andy declines, he hangs on for longer than expected and McBride offers a comment about how people sometimes need to be given permission to pass. While Andy lay unconscious, struggling to breathe, Sarah gathered his friends and leaned in close to him, giving him permission to die. She tells him how nobody will be mad at him and that, while she’ll miss him every day, it is okay. It’s one of those moments where it’s so beautiful for being so full of love, and awful for having it be ripped away. 

    Overall, the emotional impact of the book shines through superbly—and sometimes for more joyful reasons. In one particularly powerful scene, Sarah goes to the courthouse to get her name changed. She gives some passing comments about the way the justice system denies trans identities, and so there’s a moment of suspense in the judge’s response. The judge clarifies why Sarah wants to change her name and then announces how grateful he is to be part of such a significant day in Sarah’s life. The moment is an excellent inversion of expectations that easily brings a tear to the eye.

    Of course, the book also outlines some of the key political issues concerning trans people. She discusses the push for trans equality bills, the process of convincing senators and other politicians to vote her way, and so on. Of course, the so-called Bathroom Bill takes on major significance in that respect. It was a well-articulated section that described how bathroom bills serve to legislate trans people out of public life. The idea of trans people using bathrooms is never the point (ahem…no reported cases of trans people assaulting cis people in bathrooms…), but the idea of making it impossible to be anywhere that other people might be. 

    McBride’s wisdom shines through in passing moments, as well. In the first chapter, she discusses how peoples’ predominant response to trans people, when she was growing up, was laughter directed towards them on sitcoms. She then uses that as a springboard to talking about her parents’ acceptance of her as trans and their anxieties, formed in part because there were so few “references for success,” which provided them comfort when McBride’s brother came out as gay. It’s a momentary comment that speaks to the importance of representation in media and beyond.

    -–Incidentally, an interesting statistic in the book is how until relatively recently more Americans reported having seen ghosts than having known a trans person—

    I can’t speak to McBride’s political career. All politicians have their flaws, and I am always somewhat suspect of people admiring even the good ones. That said, she demonstrates some great insight into the importance of formal legislation. In trying to pass an equality bill, McBride petitions a politician personally known to the family to sponsor it, who says that it is too soon because the public isn’t educated enough on the issues. It essentially comes down to the argument that “the public isn’t ready” because they are not yet educated enough. McBride offers the rejoinder that “people are losing their jobs and their homes. Without these protections, transgender people don’t feel safe stepping out publicly. It takes a huge risk to educate.” I had never really considered the full implications of trying to educate the public before. The idea of framing it as a risk is a really powerful observation.

    The book, while insightful, is not particularly fact-driven. Or rather, facts are not the primary focus. McBride offers personal stories that are more likely to humanize trans people than would abstract numbers on a page. For that reason, it’s a great entry point into the discourse. If you’re looking for an academic text about enacting change, there are other options out there. If you’re looking for an engaging collection of anecdotes and a tragic love story that serves as a launching pad for activism, then McBride’s Tomorrow Will Be Different is a much better choice. 

    Happy reading—I hope that your reading is one more step towards changing tomorrow.