Butch by Jay Rayn

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. –Front Street Reviews

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