A review by precise
Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation by Eli Clare

challenging dark emotional informative reflective slow-paced

4.25

This book was somewhat memoir, somewhat poetry. Exile in the title refers to class as much as anything else - what I took was, if you're a rural queer person from an un-accepting community, you are exiled both in your rural community of origin and in your urban life, in different ways. I liked the digression about disability and the history of 'freak shows'. I was surprised by how environmentalist it was - he writes in depth about having grown up in a dying logging town - not unpleasant but not what I expected from the title. The edition I read had some footnotes from 2009 - would love a new edition with footnotes from the 2020s as well :) 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Incest, Bullying, Rape, Injury/Injury detail, Body shaming, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Sexual violence, Drug use, and Sexual assault

Content warnings largely relate to the author's personal history - not described in great detail, but sexual abuse from his father as well as bullying from classmates is mentioned a few times. There is also brief mention of logging related injuries in his hometown.