Like a Boy but Not a Boy

October 26, 2020
In this layered collection, bennett (Canoodlers) assembles 13 essays on mortality, pregnancy, and being a millennial nonbinary person. Spanning from their tumultuous and emotionally abusive youth and persistent obsession with death to their anxiety-ridden pregnancy and attempts to learn to take life slowly, bennett’s essays fit together like pieces of a puzzle, each exploring a given idea—bicycle repair and its relation to the mechanic’s own body; bipolar disorder and needing to be one of “the good sick”—while allowing its implications to ripple out among the rest. In the title essay, bennett describes the experience of gender dysphoria brought on by aggressively feminine language surrounding childbirth; in “Milk and Generativeness,” they ponder whether the act of lactating itself has, culturally, “ceded a right to gender.” Muddying the waters is “Everyone Is Sober and No One Can Drive,” a series of 16 short interviews with other nonbinary individuals (edited into third-person narration) interspersed between each essay, which add flavor to the collection but also introduce so many people that it becomes difficult to remember what has and hasn’t happened to bennett themself. Both moving and illuminating, this stirring series of reflections is definitely worth picking up.

August 15, 2020
A National Magazine Award-winning writer and nonbinary parent explores "the simultaneously banal but engrossing task of living in a body." Born in 1984 in Dundas, Ontario, a small town where "gender roles were binary," bennett took refuge in the term tomboy. As an adolescent, writes the author, "I began to identify with the world of female masculinity best understood and embraced by queer theory. I pursued masculine-coded work, becoming a bike mechanic. I grew up and, though I dated men, came to identify as queer." The author, who has written one book of poetry and two travel guides, also found work as a janitor, fact-checker, baker, and editor at Adbusters (her "second-worst" job, after Tim Hortons), among many other occupations (37 in all). In addition to their personal story, the author illustrates their inclusive ethics via 16 profiles drawn from interviews with queer-identified millennials born and raised in small towns in rural Canada. Although their identities range from gay and trans to bigender and Two-Spirit, these young adults share a common trajectory from rural to urban life. "Getting to the city," observes Kyle, who didn't come out until he was in his late 20s, "provides some sort of anonymity, and some sort of security blanket, and the opportunity to meet other queer people." The author also offers fresh thoughts on death, mental health (at 18, bennett was diagnosed bipolar II), and process of the birth of her child. But for all its attention to gender issues, queer identity, and female masculinity, the book's most effective essay might be the last, which tackles class issues. "37 Jobs and 21 Houses" conveys the constant upheavals and financial insecurities of working-class life by presenting a linear narrative of the author's peripatetic life. Here as elsewhere, bennett's personal experiences serve as the roots of their queer politics. Exploring beyond binary conceptions of gender, bennett shares fresh perspectives on subjects cerebral and practical.

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