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Burning Butch

Audiobook
Nonfiction: Biography
Unabridged   11.5 hour(s)
Publication date: 03/28/2023

Burning Butch

Available from major retailers or BUY FROM AMAZON
Digital Download ISBN:9781696610278

Summary

R/B Mertz's must-listen debut memoir.

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Product Description

When divorce moves young R/B Mertz away from rural Pennsylvania and their abusive father, Mertz's life is torn in two. Mertz's mom and new stepdad dive headfirst into conservative Catholic homeschooling, entrenching themselves in a world dominated by saints, prayers, and having as many babies as possible, just as Mertz is starting to realize they might be queer.

Trying to stave off the inevitable, Mertz later enrolls in a conservative Catholic college in Ohio. Coming of age in the early aughts, they grapple with flirtations, sexual encounters, and confusing relationships with students and faculty, as they try to figure out how to live a life in a world hell-bent on making them choose between their community and their identity.

At turns rebellious, charming, and self-effacing, Mertz struggles to navigate this oppressive environment, questioning whether or not there is a place for them inside or outside of the Catholic Church; whether they can be themselves on the left or the right; whether they can be "conservative" or "liberal;" or whether they can be at all. Ultimately, Burning Butch is the courageous story of a trans/non-binary butch on a quest to survive with their authenticity intact.

Author Bio

R/B Mertz is a genderqueer non-binary butch poet and artist. They taught writing in Pittsburgh for eleven years and were honored to be a finalist for City of Asylum's 2020–21 Emerging Poet Laureate of Pittsburgh. On January 1, 2021, Mertz left the US for love, and they now reside in Toronto, Ontario.