"Eli Clare's Exile and Pride . . . challenge[s] us to think beyond identity politics. This set of nine interconnected essays defies categorization in its exploration not only of queerness and disability but also of class, race, urban-rural divides, gender identity, sexual abuse, environmental destruction, and the meaning of home. . . . Clare gives us a vision of a broad-based and intersectional politics that can move us beyond the current divisions of single-issue movements." Rachel Rosenbloom, Women's Review of Books
"Eli Clare writes with the spirit of a poet and the toughness of a construction worker. The passion and skill of [his] writing will draw you inside a complex life and more deeply inside yourself." Jewelle Gomez, author of The Gilda Stories
"Exile and Pride is a call to awareness, an exhortation for each of us to examine our connection to and alienation from our environment, our sexuality, and each other." Kenny Fries, author of Body, Remember: A Memoir
"The books that move us most are the ones that help us make sense of our experience, that take pieces of what we already know and put it together with new insights, new analysis, enabling us to form a fresh vision of ourselves and our lives. For me, Audre Lorde's Sister Outsider and Adrienne Rich's On Lies, Secrets and Silence were such books, and there were significant others along the way. And now there's Eli Clare's Exile and Pride." Suzanne Pharr, author of Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism
About the Author
Eli Clare is a poet, essayist, activist, and the author of The Marrow's Telling: Words in Motion. He speaks regularly at universities and conferences throughout the United States about disability, queer identities, and social justice, and his writing has appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies.
Table of Contents
Foreword to the 2015 Edition / Aurora Levins Morales xi
Preface tot he 2009 Edition. A Challenge to Single-Issue Politics: Reflections from a Decade Later xxi
A Note About Gender, or Why is this White Guy Writing about Being a Lesbian? xxvii
The Mountain 1
Part I: Place
Clearcut: Explaining the Distance 17
Losing Home 31
Clearcut: Brutes and Bumper Stickers 51
Clear Cut: End of the Line 61
Casino: An Epilogue 71
Part II. Bodies
Freaks and Queers 81
Reading Across the Grain 119
Stones in My Pickets, Stones in My Heart 143
Acknowledgments to the 1999 Edition 161
Afterword to the 2009 Edition / Dean Spade 165
Notes 173
Index 179