Monstrans: Experimenting with Horrormones by Lino Arruda
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“Monstrans: experimenting with horrormones” is a beautifully illustrated graphic novel with strong autobiographical overtones. The book presents three stories tangled in disabled, lesbian and transmasculine experiences that are tied together by monstrous figures.
In the first story the main character embodies hybrid animalities as they wittily recall the diagnosis and physical treatments they endured as a disabled child, as well as the awkwardness of becoming a tomboy with crooked feet singled out in a ballet class and the marvels and terrors of a queer first kiss that takes place in a homophobic environment.
Phantasmagoric beings emerge in the second story, as the now matured character bridges the gap between his lesbian past and his transmasculine present. The parallels between these two seemingly antagonistic identities clash in a colorful hallucinatory monologue with memorable characters, such as a talking dicklit and a cat with half a tail (referencing Virginia Woolf’s cat with no tail).
The third chapter, titled “I still once was”, takes place in a hospital. In this story, language and temporality get disfigured along with the main character’s body, as his dying grandfather fails to recognize him as the granddaughter he still once was.
Mod opinion: I haven‘t read this graphic novel yet, but I love the title alone so much already! Also it sounds really, really interesting!
