Synopsis
Alternately unsettling and affirming, devastating and delicious, The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You, is a new collection of essays on gender and identity by S. Bear Bergman that is irrevocably honest and endlessly illuminating. With humour and grace, these essays deal with issues from women's spaces to the old boys' network, from gay male bathhouses to lesbian potlucks, from being a child to preparing to have one; throughout, S. Bear Bergman shows us there are things you learn when you're visibly different from those around you - whether it's being transgressively gendered or readably queer. As a transmasculine person, Bergman keeps readers breathless and rapt in the freakshow tent long after the midway has gone dark, when the good hooch gets passed around and the best stories get told. Ze offers unique perspectives on issues that challenge, complicate, and confound the ''official stories'' about how gender and sexuality work.
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About the Author
BEAR BERGMAN is the author of two books, the Lambda Award-nominated The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You (Arsenal Pulp, 2009), and Butch is a Noun, first published by Suspect Thoughts in 2006 and reissued in a new edition by Arsenal Pulp Press in 2010. Ze is also a frequent contributor to anthologies on all manner of topics from the sacred to the extremely profane. A longtime activist, Bear was one of the founders of the first-ever Gay Straight Alliance, and has watched them spread with wonder. Ze continues to work at the points of intersection between and among gender, sexuality, and culture, and spends a lot of time trying to discourage people from installing traffic signals there. Bear lives in Toronto, Ontario with hir husband and son.
Review
Bear Bergman writes circles around most people circles that enclose so many identities, and so much insight about all of them, that you re bound to see some of your own selves newly, and beautifully, reflected there.
―Carol Queen, author of Real Live Nude Girl (Carol Queen 20090814)
Life having the unpredictable crossroads it does, I've often wondered how memoirists handle the problem of writing a second book. Thanks to Bear Bergman's The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You, I know the answer: one goes about it with good-humored smarts, candid humility, and a queer and delightful generosity of spirit.
Hanne Blank, author of Virgin: The Untouched History (Hanne Blank 20091005)
If we could just clone Bergman s brain and manners, the world would be a much better place, indeed. This new collection of meditations, essays, and stories about living visibly queer is complex in beautifully simple ways.
Helen Boyd, author of My Husband Betty (Helen Boyd Helen Boyd 20091125)
Bear Bergman is an endearing, gallant, sexy fellow, the queer world's daddy, brother, and son. In Nearest Exit, he's writing it all down for us, today's transgender experience. This is a landmark book for both queer theory and literature, written by an accomplished teller of tales. It's a book that will be cherished by generations of queer youth and adults alike. My heart overflows the brim with love and pride when I read his words.
Kate Bornstein, author of Hello, Cruel World (Kate Bornstein Kate Bornstein 20091203)
It is rare that I pick up a book and see my life reflected in the words inside it. Bear Bergman has written parts of my life down for me to look at from another direction a funny, compassionate, nimble-tongued and Jewish direction. I want to give a copy of this book to everyone in my family, with love.
Ivan E. Coyote, author of The Slow Fix (Ivan E. Coyote 20100104)
An intellectually whip-smart and engagingly personal collection of essays about gender and its assorted and sometimes confounding permutations and combinations.... a candid, self-effacing and generously instructive primer on proud transmasculine life.
Richard Labonte, Book Marks (Book Marks 20100107)
Bergman's writing style is witty, razor sharp and super smart. Ze also writes about gender with a sensitivity that is hard to find. Bergman tackles the difficult intricacies of the terrain of gender with grace and humor.
Feministing.com (Feministing 20100111)
A sweet and tender collection.
Capital Xtra! (Capital Xtra! 20100114)
Self-described gender-jammer S. Bear Bergman is an very courageous individual, though I suspect ze would react to that by turning red and looking down at hir shoes while muttering something self-deprecating. But The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You, a collection of essays on being trans, negates any argument you might have about Bear s intestinal fortitude. Courage fairly drips off these pieces, but it s not the stern John Wayne type. It s a common sense, do-what-you-have-to-do type ballsiness leavened with humor. Oh yes. Bear is a very funny writer indeed. So funny you almost forget there s a point to be made. Almost.
Out in Print blog (Out in Print 20100219)
Bergman's elegantly written collection of essays chronicles life as a gender non-conformist with a laugh-out-loud sense of humor.... This engrossing memoir is highly recommended.
Gay and Lesbian Review (Gay and Lesbian Review 20100421)
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