Lucy Sante

A pioneering feminist adventure in an alternate world before the concept of gender. Introduced by Lucy Sante, author of the acclaimed memoir of transition I Heard Her Call My Name, this pioneering 1909 feminist utopia is productively discombobulating. When Mary Hatherley, an intrepid British explorer, is kicked in the head by the camel she was riding through the Arabian desert, she finds herself transported to what seems to be an alternate version of Earth. Arriving in Armeria, she discovers a society in which the very concept of gender is unknown. Like Mary, the reader will become disoriented, enjoyably so: By avoiding the use of gendered pronouns, the story s author (herself a gender-fluid activist) challenges our assumptions about gendered social paradigms.

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2024‘Moving’ THE NEW YORK TIMES‘A joy’ THE WASHINGTON POST‘Vibrant’ LIT HUB‘Powerful’ NEW YORKERLucy Sante has often felt like an outsider. Born in Belgium to conservative Catholic working-class parents, she was transplanted to the United States without ever entirely settling here. But a feeling of home finally arrived when she moved to New York City in the early 1970s amidst her fellow bohemians. Through those electric years, some of her friends would die young, from drugs and AIDS, and others would become jarringly famous. Lucy flirted with both fates, on her way to building a glittering career as a writer. But she could never shake that feeling. When she was finally ready, Lucy decided to confront the façade she’d been presenting to everyone, including herself, over these years. I Heard Her Call My Name is the story of that confrontation, of a life with a missing piece that with transition, falls into place. This a memoir of grace and wit that parses the issues of gender identity and far beyond with unbounding humility and hope. 'Radical, humble and wise' HERMIONE HOBY'An astonishing, once-in-a-lifetime achievement' HUA HSU'Vivid, encompassing and compassionate' CATHERINE LACEY