A Narrative to Fit the Experience.

• Date: 01 June 2023
• Author: Brinks, L.

Tar Hollow Trans: Essays

By Stacy Jane Grover

The University Press of Kentucky 152 pages

Publication date: June 20, 2023

Book reviews can often feel like a hot food court in the mall on a Sunday afternoon--full of background noise and the skimming of menus for something familiar and comfortable, actively ignoring everything else. Tar Hollow Trans: Essays, Stacy Jane Grover's forthcoming book, is not to be swallowed and digested with ease, but rather is a tome filled with challenging history and identity politics, to be meditated upon as a prompt for self-reflection on one's own personal narrative.

This immersive collection of essays on Grover's life, childhood, and home region in Appalachian Ohio is a gift to the grown-ups of the rural queer community she grew up in. "For my generation, moving out of the region was seen as a choice," she writes, "as if something other than simply needing to earn a living lured us out of the county."

Her voice speaks softly...