GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

E May 22, 2009

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www.GayPeoplesChronicle.com

eveningsout

Living a genderqueer life in a northwestern Podunk

by Anthony Glassman

There are a very few writers who can truly be considered masters of the short story, yet also turn their attention so ably to full novels, as Ivan E. Coyote has.

Her first novel, Bow Grip, was a marvel of intimate storytelling, weaving the yarn of a young divorced man finding his way in

Ivan E. Cuyote

the world. Considering Coyote's own butch-dyke persona, the male narrator was no surprise, but the tenderness displayed throughout the book certainly was.

Now Coyote is back with another collection of short stories, Slow Fix (Arsenal Pulp, trade paper, $16.95).

In the new collection, Coyote returns to

more familiar ground, small, personal portraits of moments in her life, dealing with family, friends and the travails of being a queer writer in a country at once fairly liberal and yet also very cowboy-inflected.

She was raised in the Yukon, as Wild West as Canada gets. Later, she found a home in Vancouver, home to the country's largest western artists' community.

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Illustrating one of the major differences between the U.S. and our neighbors to the north, Ivan's large extended family all accept her. In fact, a favorite nephew for a few years seemed like he might be of an “odd bent," although by his school years, that faded. It might have simply been the desire to conform, or peer pressure, or he might

have outgrown whatever gender-transgressive impulses he had as a toddler. Whatever the case, however, seeing the latest chapter in his story in the new collection gives the reader a deep insight into Coyote's heart, and is at once hopeful and heartbreaking.

Readers follow her as she moves to a Podunk town north of Vancouver following a fire at her house. They thrill to her exploits, always wondering if someone will decide to beat the crap out of her for not being the young man she appears to be.

Couple all that with the blind fear of trying to do a speaking engagement in a public high school. It would make one hell of a genre-blending action film, one suspects.

Despite having a mastery of heartstrings that rivals Yo Yo Ma, perhaps Coyote's greatest skill is illustrating for the gendernormative the dangers, perils and fear that the gender-transgressive face every single day. For a guy who dresses in a suit at work, slacks and a polo shirt at leisure, these things are a little outside the normal scope of his everyday existence.

However, a few words from Ivan E. Coyote talking about the difficulty in deciding on which bathroom to use at a service station is highly enlightening. Using a men's room means that someone might realize Ivan's a woman, while using the woman's room, she runs the risk of being labeled a pervert trying to spy on unsuspecting females. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

It's not all doom and gloom in her world, though. There are some very humorous takes on gender, like the time she and a friend absolutely tortured some poor schmuck by asking him all the questions she gets asked, like, "Were you born male?" "He's gone home to grow a moustache,"

her friend laughs as the kid wanders off, his masculinity in shambles.

There is another new realm Ivan explores in this collection: advancing age. Allergies, pot bellies, aching knees, failing eyesight. She's not a QYT anymore (queer young thing, for those who needed a translation), now she's a full-grown dyke about

The Slow Fix

slow Tix

to see the backside of 40. That tinges a lot of her stories in this collection, adding the wisdom of physical age to the oldness of her spirit.

The Slow Fix is, unfortunately, a quick read, leaving the reader hungry for more. Thankfully, four other collections of her stories and the novel Bow Grip are also all available.

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