More Butch Heroes

The much-anticipated sequel to Butch Heroes, an ingenious retelling of history that combines portraits and texts to recover—and celebrate—queer subjects from around the world.

Ingeniously conceived, Ria Brodell’s Butch Heroes books recover and celebrate queer subjects obscured or misrepresented within the dominant narratives of history. More Butch Heroes presents 15 original paintings and biographies in the style of the first volume, Butch Heroes: slyly subverted Catholic holy cards featuring individuals who were assigned female at birth but who presented as masculine.

In this book, we meet queer individuals in their everyday lives, relaxing or working, enduring their struggles (which sometimes led to death or punishment), or simply living their lives with their partners or pets: Esther Eng stands with her camera in front of the Mandarin Theatre in San Francisco where she worked in the box office as a child. Tom fishes on the Fraser River in British Columbia. Joe sits astride his horse, ready for a day's work in southwestern Idaho.

Brodell uses the format of the holy card in its traditional sense, as a means of remembrance and reverence, but also as a way to memorialize those who were often unjustly persecuted by the church. Each deeply researched portrait draws from social class, occupation, clothing, and environmental details of the time period, as well as artifacts, maps, journals, drawings, prints, or photos. For Brodell, who was raised Catholic, these queer holy figures act as retrospective replacements for the role models they wish they had known.

Ria Brodell is an artist, educator, and author based in Boston. Brodell has exhibited internationally and throughout the United States; their work has appeared in New York Magazine, The Guardian, ARTNews, The Boston Globe, and New American Paintings, among other publications. Butch Heroes was a Lambda Literary Award finalist.