An FTM Novel by an FTM

REFUSE by Elliott DeLine

So many transgender novels I have read are light, humorous, safe, but not this one.  The dark mood of this novel as an authenticity not often found in the genre,  baring the self-absorbed and sarcastically pitiable world view of late adolescents.  It follows transgender student Dean as he enters college and starts to find his fellow transmen.  Obsessed with the British indie rock band The Smiths Dean is drawn to his new roommate, himself a musician bound for success in the indie rock industry, also a transman but one with a girl friend.  Just like Real Life, the thrust of college life for Dean is the social environment rather than the classes, as a young person learns to cope in the world no longer dependent, albeit resentfully, on the family of origin, no longer able to rely on that excuse.  Dean manages to make his way through it, more or less successfully, finding his place in his insular community of transmen and his voice as a writer.

I'll be honest, I did not much care for Dean throughout much of this novel, but I know full well that liking a main character is not the point of reading a novel.  I found him self-absorbed, adolescent, unstable, but then that's who he is.

Consider the lack of models for transgender people.  Just who should Dean turn to for someone to show him how to be in the world?  So often the only community we have is our  peers, just as directionless and lost as we.  How can I expect Dean to be wiser, more philosophical or more mature than those young people who have precedent to guide them?

His relationship with Teddy, a transwoman is the most moving part of the novel and showcases DeLine's exquisite prose as no other.

He placed the angel on the footer beside the silk plant. He realized it would seem a typical talisman to passersby, just as Theodore Patrick Foley would seem a typical man.  The gesture felt powerful nonetheless. He curled up over the grave, hugging his knees. He put his lips to the dirt between the grass and closed his eyes. After a few moments, he whispered into the ground, a variation of something he’d accidentally memorized by heart “And alien tears will fill for her Pity’s long broken urn. For her mourners will be outcast men And outcasts always mourn.”

I am reminded that even people with whom I could never get along have some gift for me if I pay attention. In this case it is grace.