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The nine stories in Morgan Thomas's shimmering debut collection, Manywhere, witness Southern queer and genderqueer characters determined to find themselves reflected in the annals of history, at whatever cost. As each character traces deceit and violence through Southern tall tales and their own pasts, their journeys reveal the porous boundaries of body, land, and history, and the sometimes-ruthless awakenings of self-discovery.
A trans woman finds her independence through the purchase of a pregnancy bump. A young Virginian flees their relationship, choosing instead to immerse themselves in the life of an intersex person, from Colonial-era Jamestown. A young writer tries to evade the murky and violent legacy of an ancestor who supposedly disappeared into a midwifery bag. And, in the uncanny title story, a young trans person brings home a replacement daughter for their elderly father.
Winding between reinvention and remembrance, transition and transcendence, these origin stories rebound across centuries. With warm, meticulous emotional intelligence, Thomas uncovers how the stories we borrow to understand ourselves in turn shape the people we become. Ushering in a new form of queer mythmaking, Manywhere introduces a storyteller of uncommon range and talent.
A trans woman finds her independence through the purchase of a pregnancy bump. A young Virginian flees their relationship, choosing instead to immerse themselves in the life of an intersex person, from Colonial-era Jamestown. A young writer tries to evade the murky and violent legacy of an ancestor who supposedly disappeared into a midwifery bag. And, in the uncanny title story, a young trans person brings home a replacement daughter for their elderly father.
Winding between reinvention and remembrance, transition and transcendence, these origin stories rebound across centuries. With warm, meticulous emotional intelligence, Thomas uncovers how the stories we borrow to understand ourselves in turn shape the people we become. Ushering in a new form of queer mythmaking, Manywhere introduces a storyteller of uncommon range and talent.
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Reviews
"Thomas writes in a musical, incantatory style that approaches poetry . . . Thomas takes extraordinary care with syntax to let queer characters fully express themselves on the page. It's almost as if Thomas needed to create a new language to tell these stories; ours is still too binary."
Claire Oshetsky, The New York Times Book Review
"Thomas' breathtaking prose sings while somehow also being precise and measured. More than once while reading, I gasped . . . More than once, I was angry at Thomas for being so talented, jealous that I'd never write fiction this well, disappointed that there weren't 25 more stories to read. More than once, I was moved to tears."
Abeni Jones, Autostraddle
"By projecting their characters desires' onto sketches of historical figures, Thomas has created their own archive . . . They remind us how the past was once the present, open to all possibilities until one choice flooded the horizon."
Grace Byron, The A.V. Club