Butch
Jay Rayn
Reviewed by Araminta Matthews
Butch, by Jay Rayn, is a postcard from the life of a lesbian who
is constantly being mistaken for a man. Mike Landetti's
life, from childhood to the Marine Corps, seems to have moved full
circle around her sexuality and the gender roles that tried to trap
her. The story catalogues a barrage of superficial relationships,
one after the other, as Mike tries to work through demons of gender
identity, acceptance, heroism, and even obstinacy. While the
story is a page-turner, it left this pansexual woman wanting.
Within the first few pages, the story of Mike's childhood is skimmed,
focusing only on the brief moments of Mike's societal gender confusions
and Mike's schoolgirl crushes. At first, Mike is a young girl who
beats up the neighborhood boy-bullies in the fifties, a time when
conformity is the driving force behind virtually every American
innovation. Mike's obfuscated feelings for the various young
girls around her is perhaps the peak of this story as they depict
without adulteration young romance. Those first twitterings of
the heart bring with them confusion – we cannot tell if we want to be
the person of our affection, or if we want to be with the person of our
affection. In Mike's youth, she was no different. She
was yet to consider herself anything – straight/gay, butch/femme – she
was just a child following her heart. This experience will sing
true for any person who has spent any time examining his or her sexual
preferences, straight, gay, transgendered, bisexual, or
otherwise. This is true experience. This is connection.
At the same time, as we the reader follow Mike's life through parental
abandonment, Marine Corps gender and sexual identity harassment,
Women's Studies self-discoveries through the feminist and
gender-dissecting experience, and even a marriage to another woman, we
cannot help but notice the pale picture this story paints of the
lesbian experience. Whether it is true for many of us or not,
this story describes a disconnection between self and self-expression
so profound that it bleeds through the pages. Every relationship
Mike has – and there are many -- is described only superficially.
Each woman with whom Mike experiences romance is a character both
believable and alive, but somehow empty in the relationship. The
focus of this book is the myriad of shallow relations Mike has –
whether this is to depict a truth of all people, a truth that it
sometimes takes a lifetime to sort ourselves out enough to have a real
relationship with anyone; or, whether this book inadvertently
deconstructs the lesbian experience as a series of Farmer-in-the-Dell
relationships where the only thing that changes in this artificial game
are the roles each player plays is not made clear by the
author. Instead, we are left to believe that Mike is always
running. Running away from the truth, running toward
relationships the way only children seek siblings in the people they
meet, and running toward a breakdown.
This story is a fabulous story, both freely told in a conversational
style and enjoyable to read. It is fabulous because it describes
the circles so many people spiral around while trying to find their
identities. It is fabulous because it is the story of a life of
someone you probably know: the grade-school tomboy, the female
athlete, or the person walking down the street that you can't take your
eyes off of until you figure him – or is it her? – out. It
fabulous as an homage to greats like Stone Butch Blues, and Kate
Bornstein's eye-opening play, Hidden: A Gender. It is fabulous.
This book is available through Amazon.