Dangerous Families: Queer Writing on SurvivingQueer survivors piece together the clues to discover their own lives! Dangerous Families: Queer Writing on Surviving goes beyond the recovery narrative to create a new queer literature of investigation, exploration, and transformation. Twenty-six stories illuminate the reality of growing up in fear, struggling to rebuild lives damaged by sexual, physical, and/or emotional abuse. The book explores how abuse turns queer survivors—male, female, and transgendered—into healers, heartbreakers, and homicidal maniacs, presenting brilliant stories that sear and soar. Dangerous Families: Queer Writing on Surviving addresses all forms of abuse head-on, representing a cross-section of queer survivors in terms of race, class, ethnicity, education, origin, sexuality, and gender. Contributors use their own life experiences to create a book that takes back control from well-meaning “outsiders,” as they recount the daily struggle to overcome the damage done to their minds, bodies, and spirits in a world that denies their gender, sexual, and social identities. From the editor: “Dangerous Families consists entirely of writing by survivors of childhood abuse. That's right—no therapists analyzing our plight, no talk-show hosts exploiting us—just survivors, exploring our complicated, frightening, and fulfilling lives. These stories dispense with the usual technique of carefully massaging the reader's fragile worldview before plunging this unsuspecting innocent into a world of horror. They go right to the horror, the beauty, and the joy, often throwing the reader off-guard, revealing layers of meaning before the reader can step back.” Dangerous Families: Queer Writing on Surviving is an anthology of 26 true stories of growing up queer in families that magnify the horrors of the outside world instead of offering protection. The book is an essential read for therapists, caseworkers, cultural studies specialists, and anyone struggling to survive childhood abuse. |
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abuse Adoh ain’t arms asked baby bad girl beat blood body breath brother brown called can’t child childhood Chrystos color couldn’t crazy crying Daddy Dangerous Families Daphne Gottlieb dark didn’t want door dreams drink drunk eyes face father father’s fear feel felt femme Firedancer floor friends fuck girl grandpa hair hands happened hate he’s head healing I’ve inside Jeffrey Dahmer JoAnne Johnny kids kill kitchen knew laughed leah lakshmi piepzna-samarasinha learned Lesbian listen lived look Lusty Lady memory monster mother mother’s mouth movie never night pain parents pull queer rape remember screaming sex worker sexual she’d shirt Siobhan Brooks sister skin sleep smile Smurfs someone sometimes stop story survivors talk tell there’s things thought told touch trying waiting walk wall wasn’t watched What’s women writing