Gene's Blog

Mad Honey – A novel by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan, reviewed

Absolutely magnificent book in every way. Even the author’s notes. It deals with a hot button topic, one that has existed as long as the species has but one for which we did not even have words until a few decades ago, let alone help. The only thing I didn’t particularly like was telling Lily’s story backwards in time, though I understand the point.

Lily is a transgender woman, who was fortunate (most people are NOT) to have one supportive parent with the funds to provide her “bottom” surgery at 17 and puberty blocking hormones at an early enough age to prevent her male DNA from making the changes puberty causes. This makes her an extremely rare, almost a unicorn, transgender woman, her sexual partners would be unable to tell she was not born female even in the most intimate times unless she told them. The book opens with her murder during her senior year of high school, a new school where no one knows her as anything but fully female in appearance and in person. This isn’t new for Lily who was born Liam but knew as a three year old she was in the wrong body. The book says she is one of three people in the world able to remember her birth. I didn’t bother looking that up, but the idea is that she has always been female and has always known it.

This knowledge was not helpful, her father could not accept that his son was not his son, was ineptly brutal, even savage in his treatment of her both emotionally and physically. Her mother “knew” pretty much all along and was the parent who, after an attack on her by her father, spirited her out of his reach and supported her immediate option to transition into living as a female. This all comes out through her back story as the book is told in alternating viewpoints, Lily’s going back in time and Olivia her boyfriend Asher’s mother, going forward in time from the initial call from Asher telling her Lily was dead and he was in jail.

Much of the story revolves around the trial, the backstory interspersing with current events. Asher’s mother, Olivia, had been a victim of severe domestic abuse, Asher’s father, a cardiothoracic surgeon, brilliant, beautiful and savage, pretty much the classic picture of an extreme narcissist with a raging temper who gaslighted and savagely beat Olivia from the early days of their relationship. She loved him, forgave him, believed him when he feigned remorse and lived in abject terror, convinced she was the one at fault. She saw signs of Braden’s (Asher’s father) temper in her son which worried her. When Asher was six and Braden was beginning to beat his mother, he stepped between them and tried to defend her. That night (which gets fully explained as the book goes on) Olivia realizes that Asher too might be in danger from his father and THAT give her the impetus to escape. Her older brother, who she worshipped, is an attorney who helped her get free, he also comes out of retirement to act as Asher’s attorney during the trial which is on a single charge of first degree murder.

I’m not going to go further than that in describing the book although it is a wonderful read, a superb effort between Jodi and Jennifer to the point where one cannot tell who is writing, it is that seamless. What I want to talk about now though is how difficult life is for transgendered children. We have always had such in our population, there are countless instances in history of people who I am certain were transgender. We simply didn’t have the ability to understand that gender is not either or, it is not just male or female, but a continuum for which we have only recently developed the language to describe let alone understand and begin to accept this truth. This book does an outstanding job of contributing to the knowledge every human ought have regarding gender, that all people might be seen, understood and loved AS they ARE, not as the world would define them, but as they do. Jodi and Jennifer have taken the most current information available and incorporated it into this book from various perspectives, it couldn’t have been done better. THIS is a more than a novel, it ought be a textbook in every psychology and psychiatric curriculum. It should be read by high school children as part of their curriculum, I think that the only way to stop the hate, the disinformation, the misinformation and the violence perpetrated both physically and emotionally on those who are not strictly cisgender is with not just clinical knowledge but stories like this that tell the truth of the lives people on the continuum live. It’s that important. I’ve always considered myself fully male, but at age 73, I realized a couple decades ago that I am actually on that continuum, the LGBTQIA, as an A. I had my share of relationships, two children, one unhappy marriage, but have lived alone for three decades, happily, on my own. I admire physical beauty, I am cisgender in orientation, but I am just not really interested at all in the physical expression of it. I don’t feel I am missing anything, I feel complete in my own person. but as a white cisgender male no one asks me nor threatens me. Such is not the case for others, especially young adults and children, who are confused or uncertain about their orientation (not solely those who KNOW they are in the wrong body) regardless what sex they were assigned at birth. We are not simple creatures, we humans. It’s time books like this help the entire world understand that, accept it, that we all might live together peacefully and those who are slightly different, or greatly different, can access the tools and help, medically, culturally and societally that they need to live full lives in safety. This book provides an opening through it’s fictional depiction of a complex story, all the while being an entertaining, engrossing read. Standing ovation for both Jodi and Jennifer. They have done the world, including the majority which is either male or female solely, a huge service in writing this amazing novel. Thank you.