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Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock's Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout Hardcover – November 15, 2016
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It began in a bedroom in Naples, Florida, when a misbehaving punk teenager named Tom Gabel, armed with nothing but an acoustic guitar and a headful of anarchist politics, landed on a riff. Gabel formed Against Me! and rocketed the band from its scrappy beginnings-banging on a drum kit made of pickle buckets-to a major-label powerhouse that critics have called this generation's The Clash. Since its inception in 1997, Against Me! has been one of punk's most influential modern bands, but also one of its most divisive. With every notch the four-piece climbed in their career, they gained new fans while infuriating their old ones. They suffered legal woes, a revolving door of drummers, and a horde of angry, militant punks who called them "sellouts" and tried to sabotage their shows at every turn.
But underneath the public turmoil, something much greater occupied Gabel-a secret kept for 30 years, only acknowledged in the scrawled-out pages of personal journals and hidden in lyrics. Through a troubled childhood, delinquency, and struggles with drugs, Gabel was on a punishing search for identity. Not until May of 2012 did a Rolling Stone profile finally reveal it: Gabel is a transsexual, and would from then on be living as a woman under the name Laura Jane Grace.
Tranny is the intimate story of Against Me!'s enigmatic founder, weaving the narrative of the band's history, as well as Grace's, with dozens of never-before-seen entries from the piles of journals Grace kept. More than a typical music memoir about sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll-although it certainly has plenty of that-Tranny is an inside look at one of the most remarkable stories in the history of rock.
- Print length320 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHachette Books
- Publication dateNovember 15, 2016
- Dimensions6 x 1 x 9.25 inches
- ISBN-100316387959
- ISBN-13978-0316387958
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"An ambassador for the gender revolution currently sweeping through public restroom policy and National Geographic covers [and] a potent tool for empathy that hasn't quite existed in pop culture....Grace and co-writer Dan Ozzi spin green room drama and rock star recklessness into a gem of a rock bio that belongs on a shelf alongside Hammer of the Gods and Get in the Van."
―Paste Magazine, Best Nonfiction Books of 2016
"A full-length tell-all about Grace's lifelong journey to discovering, accepting, and at last publicly acknowledging her true identity....[told] with daring candor...the memoir establishes her as at once a transgender icon and a modern day heroine."
―Harper's Bazaar, Best Books of November
"A savagely candid transgender memoir, and thus far, the only quintessential text regarding Against Me!--one of the most significant punk bands of the aughts and onward. Without a smidgen of sarcasm, I would highly recommend the book to your grandmother, even if she is afraid of transpeople and can't name three Clash songs."―Esquire
"In this riveting and at times harrowing biography, Grace recounts in unflinching detail her path to self-realization....The story [of the band] would be enough for a compelling book, but Grace's gender dysphoria adds a remarkable twist to the tale....[a] brutally honest, soul-searching memoir."
―Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
"An engrossing story about the perils of the rock star lifestyle, identity, drug abuse, and what it means to be a punk."―Third Coast Review, Best Music and Art of 2016
"The extraordinary story of the misfit among the punks who attempted to save himself by choosing his gender--as if by erasing the man he was might heal the diseased society that produced him. Laura Jane Grace claws her way into the light and we are all inspired to find our own grace."―John Cameron Mitchell
"Laura Jane Grace has pulled off the near impossible. With her first book, Tranny, she has added a new perspective to a vastly over populated genre of music-based literature.
In doing so, she has also managed to tell her own deeply personal, at times heartbreaking, story of her struggle with gender identity in a society still content to ascribe gender using an archaic binary system that drives so many transgender people to despair.
This book is a mandatory read for anyone interested in gender identity, intellectual punk rock, or an engrossing account of a great rock and roll band, subjects that may sound mutually exclusive but here are inextricably linked."―Shirley Manson, lead singer of Garbage
"Grace writes about juggling the pressures of grappling with dysphoria and keeping her band together with such naked honesty that you can feel the weight being lifted off of her shoulders....A page turner that brims with hard emotional truth....A poignant and timely look at a still-emerging cultural issue worthy of serious discussion."―A.V. Club
"Potent...Grace writes viscerally about her experiences grappling with this condition throughout her life."―Rolling Stone
"A powerful, disarmingly honest portrait of becoming."―Entertainment Weekly
"What does it mean to be an authentic musician? The question doesn't sound like good fodder for a book - it's too woolly, too late-night-dorm-room. And yet, in part because it asks the question over and over, Against Me! front woman Laura Jane Grace's memoir works wonderfully."―Vulture
"The real power of Tranny comes from Grace's journal entries, which tell the real-time story of a quest for self that winds through addiction, divorce, and, ultimately, action to address the agonizing dysphoria."―The New York Times Book Review
"Tranny is an intimate, sometimes appropriately messy account of Grace's career as a musician and agitator, full of on-the-road indulgences and off-the-clock struggles. It's as honest as any Against Me! tune, and just as hooky."―Wired
"A poignant, brave, and at times funny story about struggling to fit into a community but feeling biologically out of place....Both fascinating and entertaining. It's also sometimes heartbreaking."―Yahoo! Music
About the Author
Dan Ozzi is a New York-based writer and has served as the editor of VICE's music site, Noisey.
Product details
- Publisher : Hachette Books; Illustrated edition (November 15, 2016)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 320 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0316387959
- ISBN-13 : 978-0316387958
- Item Weight : 1.4 pounds
- Dimensions : 6 x 1 x 9.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #929,190 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #131 in Punk Musician Biographies
- #1,917 in General Gender Studies
- #2,415 in Rock Band Biographies
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
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Laura Jane Grace is a transgender musician best known as the founder, lead singer, songwriter and guitarist of the punk rock band Against Me!. Since coming out as transgender in a 2012 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, she has become an outspoken advocate for transgender awareness. She has a daughter and lives in Chicago.
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Like she's done in her music, she's given a voice to those struggling with gender dysphoria and the like. Hearing her journey was healing in a lot of ways.
Tranny helped me to understand transgender issues in a way that I could connect to my own experiences. Now, I realized that the experiences I have are of a wholly different scale, and possibly nature, than gender dysphoria. Given my identity, however, I cannot have a truly equivalent experience. I hope that this review can help others in a similar situation to mine.
Ever since I can remember, I have wanted to wear my hair long, and except for four years in the military, I have worn a beard since I was able. My grandparents hated it. "Boys don't wear long hair." "Everyone will think you're a girl." "Someone might think you're a surfer." That was my favorite. As a child, they made get hair cuts, and thought that eventually I would outgrow the notion. Oh it's only a phase, they thought. But it wasn't. If I cut my hair short or shave my beard, I don't see myself in the mirror. I can't imagine what it would be like if it was a woman I expected to see in that mirror, but I think I understand. It was a shock to learn that throughout Laura Jane's life she was able to enjoy sex as a man, but I reflected on the fact that I can appreciate images of myself with short hair. It isn't repulsive, it simply isn't me.
I certainly wasn't willing to change my preferences for long hair to accommodate those of my grandparents even when I was forced to live against my preferences, and my issue is far smaller than gender dysphoria. It is wrong to judge someone for the needs of their mind and body, and transgender people deserve the same respect that we would give any other person.
Insightful, vulnerable, compelling, I couldn't put it down. I can't believe I'd never heard of this book until a couple months ago. I find myself dying for a sequel since a lot of time has passed since it's publication. Laura, amazing memoir. I hope you find peace and strength in your journey. Keep rockin, you're one of the all-time greats. See you on the road.
From the start, I am a fan of her band, Against Me! I’m still a fan even if it becomes just another name for what she does. But I’m not a huge fan. I know bigger fans, who have seen her (in both fake Tom and real Laura phases) than I have. AM! Is like a top 20 band for me and I was trying to think if another similar artist in my own esteem wrote something would I have preordered it sight unseen six months in advance of the release date?
Probably not.
Why is that? Well, look at the title. Grace’s dysphoria is the story, for better or worse. This book, though, is different. Despite the title, it is more a straight narrative about growing up and wanting to be in a band and then being in a band. And then the band does ok and then it does better and then it alienates some of the original fans.
The hints at the dysphoria are there. But it feels like a bit of a bait and switch. If the dysphoria is the story and someone grabs the book for that, it is only hinted at in the opening chapters.
But at the end Grace start to get deep about the story that makes her story the thing that people want to read about- no matter the reason. The problem is that there’s the earlier hints, and lines about life living in the closet, but the out of the closet stuff has been covered in other publications.
I want Laura to live her truth. I’m glad she can now. But this either seems too exploitative or not exploitative enough. I’m not sure. What I can imagine it does is allow other transwomen to live their truths, so that the details here are unimportant if they focus too much on the band or not. Ultimately, as a society we are better off when more people tell their stories and we approach closer to a universal truth (if it even exists).
Top reviews from other countries
Laura conta sua história de vida de um ponto de vista extremamente auto-depreciativo (por isso o nome do livro) e toca em assuntos pesados, gatilhos como depressão, disforia de gênero, morte, suicídio e uso de drogas. Ao mesmo tempo conta a história da banda, que está intimamente ligada à sua. O livro foi extraído de seus diários, que ela vem mantendo desde os 9 anos de idade, e organizado em capítulos entitulados com o nome de músicas da banda. Depois de ler o livro, me aprofundei nas letras dela, e percebi que Laura esteve sempre falando a verdade, só que ninguém a ouvia.
Quantos de nós sentimos que ninguém nos escuta? É uma experiência comum para depressivos sentir que só estão empurrando a vida com a barriga e não realizando nada. Que de fato são insignificantes e a "escória do mundo". Esse livro veio pra dizer o contrário - pra dizer que você pode alcançar seus sonhos. Hoje, a mesma Laura que desde criança escreve que se acha uma fracassada, é uma heroína para milhares de pessoas trans* mundo afora, uma inspiração e força para aqueles que acham que nunca serão aceitos no mundo do rock, ainda cheio de preconceitos, e uma companhia para quem se sente incompreendido em seus momentos de depressão. Me tornei fã.
Só posso finalizar dizendo que espero ansiosamente pelo próximo livro de Laura Jane Grace.