tion>
Lidia Yuknavitch is the author of the novels The Book of Joan, The Small Backs of Children and Dora: A Headcase. Her highly acclaimed memoir, The Chronology of Water, was a finalist for a PEN Center USA award for Creative Non-fiction and winner of a PNBA Award and the Oregon Book Awards' Readers' Choice. Her TED talk, 'The Beauty of Being a Misfit', has been watched over two million times. Lidia teaches in Oregon, where she lives with her husband Andy Mingo and their son. She is a very good swimmer. @LidiaYuknavitch | lidiayuknavitch.net
ALSO BY LIDIA YUKNAVITCH
The Small Backs of Children
Dora: A Headcase
The Chronology of Water
Her Other Mouths
Liberty’s Excess
Real to Reel
Published in Great Britain in 2018 by Canongate Books Ltd,
14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
First published in 2017 by HarperCollins Publishers,
195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007
This digital edition first published in 2017 by Canongate Books
Copyright © Lidia Yuknavitch, 2017
The moral right of the author has been asserted
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78689 239 3
Export ISBN 978 1 78689 240 9
eISBN 978 1 78689 241 6
This book is for Brigid.
“We are all creatures of the stars.”
—DORIS LESSING
“Heterosexuality is dangerous. It tempts you to aim at a perfect duality of desire. It kills the other story options.”
—MARGUERITE DURAS
“Be careful what stories you tell yourselves about beauty, about otherness. Be careful what stories ‘count.’ They will have consequences that shiver the planet.”
—The Book of Joan
CONTENTS