Literature

Queer and trans lives do not always follow the same timelines that cis and straight lives follow. We do not always hit the same milestones at the same times. Our lives are not always legible to those on the outside. This is one of the most beautiful things about queerness — the way it invites us to shed ways of moving through time that do not serve us.

I feel like this is trying too hard to claim for queer folks what is intrinsically, universally human. Is anyone’s life always legible to those on the outside? And come on, non-linear narratives are hardly new or unique to queer authors, lol. Plenty of folks have been bothered by that kind of narrative, it certainly doesn’t mean there’s anything special about that.

Of course I remain open to being corrected. It could well be that I’m just ignorant on the history and function of non-linear narratives. But this reads like the author is trying way too hard to lay claim to things that pretty much everyone experiences to varying degrees at one point or another.

Linear and circular communication represent an axis of communication style! Culturally, linear communication seems to be favored in the US, but it’s not necessarily “better” or more valid. Linear is important if your narrative is causal or if time and sequence have a strong impact on outcome, but a circular narrative is more useful for presenting a “lay of the land” as a person knows it with structure around on themes and connections rather than time.

Interesting, I recently read Slow River by Nicola Griffith, a gay and disabled writer. That had similar criticism all over Goodreads for being non-linear. Interesting to see why the author may have done this now, the themes of the novel tie in with this theory.

I would add, as an ex fundamentalist, my deconversion absolutely followed this non linear route. I've often compared the process of deconversion to coming out, and although I'm straight cis, this is another aspect that resonates with my experience.