crane

“Queer” fiction is made for actually queer people. Common themes of prejudice, isolation, movement and protests, finding company in other people like you.

A theme that often isn't dealt with in queer fiction is family history and legacy. At least not in a positive manner. Queer stories cast a doubt on these topics, and are often about defying or outright abandoning them.

Which kind of comes with the territory. A lot of queer people -after coming out- are either rejected by their families or feel isolated as “they're so different now.”

So why is reading such an aggressively queer book with such themes feel so liberating? refreshing? I can't even describe it.

The Abernathys’ history is one full of trauma and hurt. Their legacy, one of shame. Their name dragged through the mud and decay. Unlike the Davies their legacy is a curse, a foretelling of death.

But like isn't that just what being queer is. That's what it has always felt for me. An identity that foretells oppression and hardship. Lgbt as a word has a reference to the aids epidemic. It was originally Glbt but when lesbians were the only group willing to care for those infected, it was changed.

But queer history is relieving too. Saint Abernathy is a literal role model to Miles. Do you know how it feels to read history and know that while you might be ostracized by your family now your ancestors would have welcomed you with open arms? To know that people like you walked this earth?

But it's a bittersweet relief. The real tragedy Saint Abernathy's life is in not what happened but what he could have been, the life he could have lived that was ruthlessly taken from him.

324,029 men and women died in the AIDS epidemic. This statistic alone is horrifying. These people aren't just numbers on a page, they're people with lives, jobs, friends and families. People who were denied the simple luxury of growing old and living a comfortable life. As if it's such a big ask.

That's what Compound Fracture -and much of AJW's writing- is to me. It's a deeply angry book, it's a book that claws and scratches and burns. Burns because isn't it infuriating? To see and learn and read about all these shitty things that happened simply because people were too bigoted, because the man on top always wins? Because that's how things are?

I love that so much about his books. So much of my teen years was spent angry. I realized I was queer early on, genderfluid later on. Reading his books is a catharsis. For once in my life my anger is understood and almost justified. I'm not overreacting or letting my emotions get the better in me, I don't feel inhuman for having them.