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A review by andforgotten
The Misfit's Manifesto by Lidia Yuknavitch
5.0
"My hope is that by contributing a tiny piece of my story to the larger world of stories, I can help us hear and see all these stories differently."
Lidia Yuknavitch wrote a book about misfits, but rather than relying on her own narrative, she includes those of others. Constantly aware of her own privilege as a white cis woman (blond and conventionally attractive at that), relativizing her own misfit status against that of others who don't have that sort of privilege, she offers up their voices alongside her own. Not just retelling their stories, but letting them speak for themselves, speak of their own experience in their own words.
There are differences in gender, sexual orientation, and race, but there are always connecting strands between these people, all of them misfits who are still grappling with their personal history, but who have managed to channel the creative energy created by a life on the edge of society, by an existence in the margins, by not quite fitting in. Their stories are of abuse and suffering, addiction and recovery, of bodies that will not be tamed into conforming.
She speaks of her own experience, too, including events of her life which she wrote about in far more detail in her memoir, The Chronology of Water, but writes about them here by specifically putting them into the context of her creativity; showing how they all became portals for her. But there is no romanticizing of oddities, failures and mistakes: instead, she speaks her truth, and speaks it against the wide-spread monomyth of the Hero's Journey, crushing the concept of "suffering makes you stronger".
Despite having read her autobiography a while ago, on which much of The Misfit's Manifesto relies, it never felt like mere rehashing of facts. Raising up other voices who may not get the chance to be heard without the amplification Yuknavitch provides, she creates something entirely new, something encouraging and beautiful.
Lidia Yuknavitch wrote a book about misfits, but rather than relying on her own narrative, she includes those of others. Constantly aware of her own privilege as a white cis woman (blond and conventionally attractive at that), relativizing her own misfit status against that of others who don't have that sort of privilege, she offers up their voices alongside her own. Not just retelling their stories, but letting them speak for themselves, speak of their own experience in their own words.
There are differences in gender, sexual orientation, and race, but there are always connecting strands between these people, all of them misfits who are still grappling with their personal history, but who have managed to channel the creative energy created by a life on the edge of society, by an existence in the margins, by not quite fitting in. Their stories are of abuse and suffering, addiction and recovery, of bodies that will not be tamed into conforming.
She speaks of her own experience, too, including events of her life which she wrote about in far more detail in her memoir, The Chronology of Water, but writes about them here by specifically putting them into the context of her creativity; showing how they all became portals for her. But there is no romanticizing of oddities, failures and mistakes: instead, she speaks her truth, and speaks it against the wide-spread monomyth of the Hero's Journey, crushing the concept of "suffering makes you stronger".
Despite having read her autobiography a while ago, on which much of The Misfit's Manifesto relies, it never felt like mere rehashing of facts. Raising up other voices who may not get the chance to be heard without the amplification Yuknavitch provides, she creates something entirely new, something encouraging and beautiful.