Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl's Confabulous Memoir

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2016

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Introduction-Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1: “Runaway”

Introduction Summary: “Dangerous Stories”

The narrator of Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars, a fictionalized memoir, explains her frustration with typical “trans stories” to the reader. She has been watching a famous trans woman receive a prestigious award on television. The narrator notes that this trans woman exemplifies a particular trope in trans lives and experiences: that of the pretty white girl who assimilates into “normal” society by getting married and becoming wealthy. The only other common narratives for trans people, according to the narrator, are ones where they die. The narrator explains that she wishes someone would share the stories of trans girls and women of color who do not conform to these safe and palatable narratives. While watching the famous trans woman on television, the narrator becomes so angry that she considers kicking the television screen. She decides against it, since all trans women are “sisters” in the end. Instead, the narrator blows a kiss at the screen and it shatters.

Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “The Crooked House in the Heart of Gloom”

The narrator begins to share her story, revealing that she was assigned male at birth and that her parents are immigrants from China. They settled in a seaside city called Gloom, which, as its name suggests, is nearly always gray and overcast. Back in China, the narrator’s parents were a pop singer and a renowned martial artist, but in Gloom they work factory jobs. They transferred all their hopes and dreams for success to their son, pushing him to study all the time and to remain secluded indoors. The narrator explains that she could not meet her parents’ expectations because of her “wild” nature and because she “wanted to be a girl” (9). At an early age, the narrator learns to pick locks and uses the skill to escape from her “crooked house” to visit the nearby parks and playgrounds, using the time to plan for what she refers to as her “Great Escape.”

Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary: “The Day the Mermaids Died”

For a long time, a school of giant mermaids has lived off the coast of Gloom. One day, however, all the mermaids beach themselves on shore and die. No one can offer a clear explanation for this phenomenon. Many citizens of Gloom, including the narrator and her younger sister, Charity, go down to the beach to observe the dying mermaids and try to help them. The narrator decides that this is the day she will escape, leaving Gloom to make a new life. While she and Charity are toting buckets of water to the mermaids, the narrator reveals her plan to run away that very day. Charity is saddened to learn this, since it means that she will be left behind. Charity begins to cry, wondering what she will do without her sibling, and the narrator attempts to comfort her. They are interrupted by the sound of the mermaids wailing loudly. It sounds as if they are saying “enough” and “thank you.” Eventually the sounds of the mermaids fades away, and they are gone.

Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary: “The Lesson of the Bees”

The narrator describes a time when she was attacked by a swarm of killer bees. In the story, she sneaks out of her crooked house one day to go to Old Man Tom’s garden, where she plays a game, imagining she is a princess. She gets too close to a sticky, buzzing clump of vines and finds herself surrounded by a huge swarm of angry bees. She holds perfectly still until eventually the bees become calm and she is able to walk away without being stung. The narrator then states that this is not actually what happened. In fact, the swarm of killer bees entered her house one night, when she was only six years old, after her mother came home from work and left the front door open. The bees flew up the stairs and into the narrator’s room, where they lay on her, stinging her and crawling into her body. She lay still in her bed until they eventually flew away, but some of them were left behind, and they made nests in the narrator’s body, where they remain to this day.

Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary: “Song of the Pocket Knife, Part I”

This is an excerpt from the narrator’s notebook, which she always carries with her. This particular passage is a poem, an ode to her pocketknife, which is her other treasured possession. In the poem, she refers to the pocketknife as her most trustworthy friend, for it “always tells the truth” (19). She also notes that she uses her pocketknife to cut open her skin and free the insects living underneath.

Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary: “The City of Smoke and Lights”

Beyond the coastal town of Gloom is a well-known city called the City of Smoke and Lights. The narrator explains that in this city a person can be anyone they want to be and live whatever kind of life they dream of. In the City of Smoke and Lights, there are individuals of various races, ages, genders, and backgrounds. It contains many more possibilities than the town of Gloom. The narrator has decided to take all the money she has and buy a one-way bus ticket to the City of Smoke and Lights. She boards the run-down bus and sits in the very back, attempting to go unnoticed by the other passengers. She remarks that she is looking forward to starting over in her new city.

Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary: “Ghost Friend, or, the Only Person Who Can Make Me Come”

While sitting on the bus, the narrator recalls the first time she met her “Ghost Friend”: an invisible being who is the only individual able to make her orgasm. One day while she was skipping school, the narrator ventured to a cemetery and felt an unseen force touch her on the back of her neck. She soon realized that this being was benevolent and interested in fostering a closer connection with her. During their first encounter, the narrator allows the ghost hand to touch her body more and more intimately, until eventually it is touching her in a sexual manner, bringing her to orgasm. After that day, her Ghost Friend stayed close by, providing her with companionship when needed and also warning her of potential danger. Sitting on the bus, waiting to depart for the City of Smoke and Lights, the narrator can feel her Ghost Friend lingering close at hand.

Part 1, Chapter 7 Summary: “How to Kill a Man With Your Bare Hands”

During the bus journey, the narrator notices an intimidating man continually gazing at her despite her efforts to go unnoticed. She recognizes the look in his eyes as one of desire, and she makes an effort to avoid him. The bus stops at a rest stop later that night, and the man approaches the narrator, propositioning her for sex. The narrator declines, and he approaches her more menacingly and forcefully. The narrator responds by burning him with her cigarette, kicking him in the ribs, and breaking his nose with the force of her punch. She explains that her father, the martial arts master, taught her to fight and how to kill a man by practicing her punches on a tree in her backyard nearly every day.

Part 1, Chapter 8 Summary: “Song of the Pocket Knife, Part 2”

In another short poem, the narrator reflects on the various reasons that she keeps her pocketknife on her at all times. It provides her with “comfort” as well as protection. In the aftermath of her violent encounter with the man at the rest stop, the narrator considers that the pocketknife does not protect her from others, but rather protects other people from her.

Part 1, Chapter 9 Summary: “‘Dear Charity’ (Letter 1)”

In the first letter to her younger sister, the narrator assures her that all is well and that so far she has not encountered any trouble on her journey to the City of Smoke and Lights. She explains that when she arrives, she’s hoping to get a job, perhaps in retail, and to start saving money for her transition and her new life. The narrator also recalls how she used to care for her younger sister, attending to her needs while their mother was at work. She includes an excerpt from a song she used to sing to soothe her sister. She also puts in several pine needles for her sister to add to her collection of strange natural objects.

Introduction-Part 1 Analysis

The first section of Kai Cheng Thom’s fictionalized memoir introduces the unnamed narrator and protagonist. She is a young trans woman of Asian descent who dreams of leaving her depressing hometown and her controlling family. Importantly, she is also not a reliable or trustworthy narrator. She will begin to relate a significant portion of her story, but will then quickly interject into her own narration to correct or change it. She shares the story of being attacked by a swarm of bees in a neighbor’s garden, and how she avoided being stung by remaining calm and still. However, she then changes the entire scope and outcome of her story, stating: “Wait. Sorry. That’s not what happened. Here’s what happened” (17). The narrator then goes on to explain how her bee attack actually occurred in her bedroom, and that afterward the bees “crawled up inside [her] body and built their nests there” (18). By interrupting her own narration and by relating two completely different stories, the narrator establishes that the tales she’s telling may not be the entire truth. In fact, some may be outright lies, as indicated in her letter to her sister, where she explains that her bus journey to the City of Smoke and Lights has been uneventful. She even foregrounds her inaccurate narrative by telling her sister, “I’m the liar in this family, not you” (31). She implies that she is well-aware of her predilection for lying, and that her sister—and in turn the reader—should be aware of this fact, too. The book’s subtitle, “a dangerous trans girl’s confabulous memoir,” hints at this ambiguous relationship to truth: The neologism “confabulous” implies the real words “fabulous” and “confabulation”—the latter a term for a psychiatric disorder involving the unintentional creation of fictitious memories. The competing stories of the bees illustrate this dynamic. The first story is plausible in that it follows the accepted rules of reality. The second breaks those rules but captures, through symbolism, an emotional truth that is not expressed in the first story. Thom uses Magic as a Window to the Unconscious in this way throughout the novel—magic serves to project the characters’ inner experiences onto the material world around them.

Several such fantastic incidents that occur in the first chapters. In the introduction, for example, the narrator blows a kiss at the television so powerful that it shatters the screen. She also notes that an entire colony of giant mermaids lives—or once lived—in the bay outside her hometown of Gloom. The mermaids eventually die, and though their demise seems to lack explanation, the narrator reminds the reader that “we had poisoned the seas with our oil and trash, and that it was the end of the world, which everyone knew already” (11). In fact, the day the mermaids died, beaching themselves on the shore, is the day that the narrator decides to leave her hometown and start a new life. The mermaids and their spectacular demise serve as a turning point or catalyst for the narrator. As such, these moments of fantasy or “magical realism” represent significant points of development for the characters of the text, and also provide opportunities to reflect on difficult societal issues.

The narrator is also introduced as an individual who has experienced trauma and violence, and who is at times inclined to inflict violence on others. The incident with the bees suggests violation and perhaps sexual assault, as it occurred in her bedroom and she notes that she “lay there, clutching the sheets in [her] fists, and waited for it to be over” (18). As a result of this harrowing moment, the narrator explains that she still has bees buzzing inside her and that they buzz particularly loudly during sexual encounters or when her consent is at risk of being violated. The bees are a physical and metaphorical representation of the bodily trauma she experienced. The narrator, therefore, has moments where she in turn feels almost compelled to harm herself and others. In the first poem about her pocketknife, she notes that she uses it to “open up mouths in [her] skin” (19). Later, when she is threatened by a man seeking sex from her at a rest stop, she fights back with conviction. She recalls the moment in which, “[she] abandon[ed] [herself] to the dance of feet and fists until the man [was] curled up on the ground, at [her] mercy” (28). The way in which the narrator acknowledges that she turns to violence frequently and with enthusiasm foreshadows how violence, in the form of both defense and revenge, will continue to play a pivotal role in the narrator’s story.