I see the wounded moon, I fear
The travelling star, the mushroom cloud,
Beneath the perilous universe
For you, for you, my head is bowed.

It was only today, reading about the Navajo objections to human remains being deposited on the moon last year, that I got an idea of what Dobson might have had in mind.Buu Nygren, President of the Navajo nation:

"We view it as a part of our spiritual heritage, an object of reverence and respect. The act of depositing human remains and other materials, which could be perceived as discards in any other location, on the moon is tantamount to desecration of this sacred space."

There's garbage on the moon! Bits of spaceship and equipment -- golf balls -- literal bags of shit, piss, and vomit! To me, something like the left-behind lander or the bootprint has an overwhelmingly positive meaning -- but I can easily see how from someone else's perspective it might look like the sacred moon was used as a dump. Hell, I'm a Pagan, I can see that from my own perspective. It's a grinding of gears.

I don't know whether this is the angle from which Dobson was coming. Other lines in the poem suggest she wasn't anti-space exploration. She may have had in mind the potential exploitation of space as an arena for war. If we can put people onto the moon, what else can we put in space -- spy satellites, beams, bombs? This, too, is a grinding of gears for someone who became a space enthusiast last year, and amongst the science and the joy discovered the pollution, the exploitation, the grifting, the moral compromises. The beautiful Space Shuttle didn't just do science, it also worked for the Department of Defense.

Dobson places "the travelling star" -- a natural catastrophe that comes fromoutside, perhaps an asteroid hitting the Earth -- into the same category as the human-made mushroom cloud, a threat from theinside. Discarding the Outer Space Treaty and putting weaponry into orbit will put the human race into the same category as the travelling star. We will be pointing two guns at our own head in an already dangerous universe.

"...Carola, who was sitting facing the door, gasped. Natasha turned and joined her in a chorus of aghast surprise. Annabelle took note, without surprise, that the theatricality was there even when the emotion was genuine."

 Tl;dr: This is an earthy adventure story, a sly piece of literature, and an important record of trans life in the US in the late 70s. Originally written in the 80s, it was finally published in 2016, and won the Lambda Literary Award for Best Trans Fiction. I recommend it, with the caveat that there is sex, violence, and sexual violence. It would make a terrific movie.

(Wait. Where does a random cis girl get off reviewing a trans book? Looking for something positive to contribute, I said I'd read and review some books by trans authors. Maybe I can draw attention to a few books.)

To review any book, I have to read it twice; first to gain a broad impression, second to see the details more clearly. My first time throughTiny Pieces of Skull I only saw Annabelle's adventure: her trip from London to New York and then Chicago, at the behest of the selfish Natasha; the betrayal; the rescue by Alexandra; and Annabelle and Alexandra's sexual adventures as they struggle to pay the rent. In the end, Annabelle becomes part of a small, marginal community with its own expectations and rules.

It was on the second read that I realized the novel's preoccupation, present on nearly every page: authenticity. In particular, feminine beauty as a measure of authenticity. Right on page 1, Natasha warns our heroine: "You'll never be a woman if you eat that cream cake."

Of course, authenticity -- beingseen as authentic, passing -- means safety, survival. Natasha warns Annabelle that she cannot relax, she cannot be "lazy". Vain Alexandra will admit 'even I'm not perfect or safe, not really'. But Natasha also uses this as a means of control. In fact, she is in the habit of rebuilding her friends: "... she was never one to leave her dear friends with a problem, a blemish, or anything that was unreconstructedly them." (There's a lot of it about. Alexandra remakes Annabelle in her own image: a john thinks they are literally sisters. The American characters can't tell that the received accent Annabelle affects is not her natural one.)

At the same time, Natasha has fallen into the clutches of a romantic con man, Carlos, who is naturally careful to isolate her from her friends -- leaving Annabelle stranded in Chicago. Carlos, too, is engaged in a rebuilding project: rewiring Natasha's self-confidence, her relationships, her taste in art, while taking her for every penny he can. Natasha summarises the relationship when she quotes Carlos: "He says I'm much too beautiful for it to matter much."

"It" is, of course, the fact that Natasha is "a sister"; she is a trans woman. I think the book's subtitle, "A Lesson In Manners", derives from everyone's careful use of euphemism. A sister might be described thus: "she's, well, like you"; perhaps someone has breast implants but wants "the other thing done" -- or call it "taking care of business". Is it simple delicacy, femininity? "It's a necessary part of having manners," comments Carola. Is it also survival, again -- relying on insiders' understanding to avoid alerting outsiders? And/or a form of bonding between those who "have the beans" -- are in the know?

In some ways Annabelle is a tourist in the US, promptly ripped off by a cabbie. She keeps her ticket home, just in case; some other sisters don't have a way out. But she is also smart and resilient, and can think and talk her way out of a situation: hilariously, she manages Bunckley the police officer by promising him a bobby's helmet. Annabelle's attitude to sex work is expressed by her comment on a customer's dirty car: "There isn't much in the way of dirt you can't brush off boots... and it was only fluff anyway." (Some moments are better than others. Annabelle seldom cries, but her eyes are sometimes irritated by her contacts, or by cigarette smoke.)

Eventually Annabelle and Natasha earn their keep by putting on private little BDSM shows for their clientele. "She was finally enjoying herself... Part of the point of coming here had been, had it not, to sit around feeling mildly and snugly wicked after years of being safe and plain and quiet and that other thing in the Civil Service." "...they all knew from their childhoods that what they were doing was very naughty indeed. They stayed up late as well." (This content is especially interesting in light of Kavaney's activism; here, BDSM is not some horrific beast, but funny, harmless, and ultimately insignificant.)

The ultimate feminine perfection is the much-admired, much-storied Mexica, who has had her skull remodeled -- hence the book's macabre title -- and so, by metaphor or implication, her brain, her self or soul. Mexica is a legend to the other sisters, her exploits mentioned more and more often until, inevitably, she is winched down from heaven for a personal appearance -- not quite what Annabelle or the reader might have been expecting.

The story finishes in a quickly escalating series of steps of violence and revenge, propelling Annabelle and Natasha back to the UK to "live quietly". It's as though they have been part of a community of superheroes with colourful identities, and now they must shuck their costumes; or that Chicago has been a sort of underworld through which they have journeyed, with the help of variably reliable Virgils.

The ultimate question, then, is whether the novel itself is authentic. Here and there are anecdotes which might be too good to be true, as when Annabelle cleverly, and absolutely, destroys a rapist. Kaveney tells us: "Most of it happened, more or less".

I think the moment when Annabelle establishes, once and for all, herown authenticity, actually comes quite early on, when she has her breasts implants done. They will prove to herself, and to her cis feminist friends, that she is sure about what she wants, that she's doing the 'right thing': they will be a 'commitment in my heart... Outward sign of inward grace, as the nuns taught us in catechism.' Afterwards, she writes a defiant postcard to an unsympathetic cis friend: 'And my tits are real... I know what imaginary tits are like, and these are not they, not ever again.'

(Will I look back at this review, years from now, and be struck by its naivety -- its own lack of authenticity?)

https://www.teamangelica.com/post/roz-kaveney-tiny-pieces-of-skull

Ye cats and little fishes, I think that's a complete first draft of "Weird Machine", 24,000 word science fiction novella. It was supposed to be a novel but what the hell. ETA: Thanksfully it's only 20,000 words; I'd pasted chapter three in twice. 🤪