Review: Missed Connections with Tall Girls

In a lot of stories about down-on-their-luck trans women, we see the protagonist wrestle with their sense of identity within their body, and either change what they can about it, or learn to live with what they cannot.  In those stories, the struggle that defines being trans is (primarily) a struggle against oneself.

This book is not that.

Missed Connections With Tall Girls is, first and foremost, a book about being homeless and broke.  As the back cover emphasizes, the book is full of “train-hopping, pill-popping, fur-wearing, sink-pissing, tranny punk odes!”

It is a collection of short poems which are loosely based on the author’s life.  

To hear her tell it, she has been homeless or at threat of becoming it for most of her life, and the fragmented way in which the story is told reflects this.  

There are a great number of excellent characters that we are with for a few pages, only for the story to move on.  These are the tall girls whom the book’s missed connections are based around, and the narrator takes time to wish they were all more present in her life.

This is why the choice to write in poetry works so well.  The fragmented prose compliments the fragmented life that we see her live.

In isolation, these fragments would not add up to much- they each sketch a short scene in her life, with most only being a single page long.  Together, they make a collage of a rich and adventurous life.

The main character has to use the experiences in these adventures to keep her head up at all times, despite her instability, even when she is expected to grovel.  

This is best shown in a section where she wears a fur coat to the unemployment office.  Rather than act as if her poverty defines her, she makes sure to project the version of herself that she wishes to be to the outside world, not the version that she actually is.  

It’s the only time we see her talk about how she comes to us in such detail, and the topic quickly fades into the background again, as more pressing matters take up her attention.

If we only ever saw her suffer, the book wouldn’t be half as good as it is.  Despite its being only 96 pages, and short enough to finish in about two hours, “Missed Connections with Tall Girls” shows a rich life is lived within a world that sucks.  

The poetic meter is a bit hard to get used to, as I don't read a lot of poetry, but I still found it to be a great read.

Disclaimer: I was given an advanced review copy of the book by the publisher Little Puss Press in exchange for writing a review on it.