The novella reinforces stereotyping lesbians as utterly unfeminine-like and "butch", and what about other sexualities besides gay? The Orpheus myth theme and subtext is rather forced; a reach and contrivance. There is a "redemption" for, and forgiveness written towards, a truly monstrous and unforgivable character at the conversion therapy camp. And unfortunately the story's catalyst - its wham moment towards freedom and a catharsis - at the end is a Bury Your Gays moment, or a Bury Your Trans moment, which comes out of nowhere, and it causes every other character to be saved. WTF?
From my original review:
Yes, in spite of its importance, 'Orpheus Girl' has flaws, which could have been fixed if it had been longer. The side characters are not as well developed as Raya; Raya's love for Greek mythology and the Orpheus myth specifically are not as prominent in the story as they could have been (not compared to everything else in her life, anyway), making it a loose retelling at best; the climax and resolution involve a tragedy befalling the only trans character at the camp (which has become a cliché at this point, and it isn't helping anyone) (and who is deadnamed but only by the villains); there exists the straight/gay dichotomy in the book, with no mention of bisexuality or any other sexual orientations and gender binaries in the LBGTQA community; and as far as I can tell, everyone is white.
It's a very depressing 160 page read, too, and not what I need right now.
But 'Orpheus Girl', like almost every LBGTQ+ book by LBGTQ+ authors, is an important piece of literature that should be read by everyone - for its truths, its real world, social justice messages and themes. It's a haunting, disturbing, harrowing, horrifying story, to be sure, even though I didn't feel the romance.
'Orpheus Girl' exposes the pure evil that is conversion therapy camps for what they are: a death sentence. A prison-turned-death row. The people who run them, and work in and for them, literally torture children for a living. Conversion therapy should be banned everywhere, for the barbaric atrocity and human rights violation that it is. For that declaration alone I commend the novella, though I won't be keeping it with me, on my shelf, anymore.
Final Score: 3.5/5
Original Review:
'Orpheus Girl' is a poetic, beautifully written novella about love in the face of hate on an overwhelming, societal and cultural scale. It is about the pressures and limited expectations that teenage girls are forced to conform to in order to survive in a heteronormative, cisgender society. It is crushing.
'Orpheus Girl' is about Raya, a young lesbian who lives in a small town in Texas where queer people are worse than ostracised - they are made to disappear, never to be seen again. They are erased. Raya lives with her grandmother, whom she has a strained relationship with. The grandmother may only tolerate her granddaughter because she wants another chance to "raise her right", after Raya's mother got pregnant as a teenager, and then left Raya when she was two, to be an actress in a TV series where she plays a Greek goddess. This is where Raya's interest in Greek mythology sprang, and she harbours a vain hope that one day her mother will leave the fantasy TV world and come back to her.
No one understands Raya - no one bothers to try - except for her childhood friend Sarah, who becomes her lover, like it was destiny.
But eventually they are caught having sex by Sarah's brother's friend, and because people are typically bound to believe in and take the side of a drunk teenage boy than consider the feelings and safety of teenage girls, Raya and Sarah's lives are ruined forever. Around the same time, both of them are sent off to a hell on earth: a conversion therapy camp.
They are not expected to come back home. Or if they are, they will be forced to be what they are not for the rest of their lives, with the stigma following them and disgracing them for that long.
Raya will not give up, however. She knows there is nothing wrong or sinful or disgusting about her, and she will desperately try not to let fear brought on by hellish bigots control her life. As she enters the camp, she imagines herself as Orpheus, heading into the underworld to save her love, Sarah.
'It's then I decide that I'm going to descend into the depths of the underworld just like Orpheus, and I'm going to save the girl I love. Because Orpheus? She's a girl, who likes girls.' - page 60.
It is a battle for love and hope worth fighting for. Though no one can come out the other end of
This is a hard hitting and horrifying novella that brings to light serious issues concerning the LBGTQA community. It is about the human rights violation and the hate and torture prisons that are conversion therapy camps, and the utter audacity and disgrace that these are somehow still legal in a lot of American states. They are death sentences for queer people. They are about erasing queer people, making them suffer for who they are; it has nothing to do with "healing" or any of that bullshit about curing people. Being gay is not a disease, I thought that this was common knowledge by now in the 21st century. Bigots hiding behind religion to excuse their hateful views and actions are among the most heinous and dangerous people on earth. Conversion therapy gives them an edge, an advantage, and a payroll.
But amazingly, amidst the intolerance and torment, 'Orpheus Girl' is about hope. Hope for a better world out there for queer people whose only crime is being in love. Raya is an emotional, scared but determined and lovely girl who any teenage girl can relate to, in terms of fitting in for survival and for their family's acceptance. She tells her life in fragments of memory; between happiness and hope, and pain; and in fragments of dreams. She routinely escapes from herself, from her own body, and hides in her own safe space, in order to live; but she won't hate herself like everyone else wants her to. Internalised homophobia is a tragedy in this book.
Raya's first act of rebellion in her prison sentence is shaving her head, defying heteronormative gender roles at last.
Raya was also born with two small, misplaced vertebrae on her back, like wings growing, which were then surgically removed, leaving behind scars. Being gay is not the only thing she has to hide about herself from her community - she feels she could be an angel, she is an angel, but others who are misguided won't likely see it that way. She has dreams where her beloved wings, upon returning to her, sprout violently from her back while her peers scream "Freak!" at her...
I don't think there is any teenager who isn't insecure and frightened in a largely intolerant society going back generations. Adults are useless and hopeless sometimes. And they're meant to guide the next generation and keep them safe, not tell them that they're sick and unholy and need to be sent to torture camps where if they don't die, then they'll be dead inside. There is no love whatsoever in sending your children to conversion therapy, period. No more excuses. These people just don't want to deal with their queer kids who have defied what they want for them instead of seeing them as whole human beings with lives of their own - so off to prison the scared and disowned children go, to be rid of them.
Yes, in spite of its importance, 'Orpheus Girl' has flaws, which could have been fixed if it had been longer. The side characters are not as well developed as Raya; Raya's love for Greek mythology and the Orpheus myth specifically are not as prominent in the story as they could have been (not compared to everything else in her life, anyway), making it a loose retelling at best; the climax and resolution involve a tragedy befalling the only trans character at the camp (which has become a cliché at this point, and it isn't helping anyone) (and who is deadnamed but only by the villains); there exists the straight/gay dichotomy in the book, with no mention of bisexuality or any other sexual orientations and gender binaries in the LBGTQA community; and as far as I can tell, everyone is white.
And I feel I have to say this, but in reading 'Orpheus Girl' and seeing other stories like it, as an Englishwoman I have to wonder how anyone survives in Texas and other states like it. I know I'm generalising but that's the impression I keep getting.
And 'Orpheus Girl' and other stories like it, such as 'The Miseducation of Cameron Post', may be set in the nineties or the early 2000s', but they are extremely relevant today. These horrors are still happening, and we need to acknowledged this and do something about it already. Let all queer people - queer young people - feel safe and free to be themselves everywhere. Do not let hate and violence win.
I'll leave off with these heartbreaking and true quotes from this alluring and magnificent novella:
'I don't respond. I've forced myself to go to that strange, calm place that girls can access only when they're in trouble. The kind where you leave your body like you're already dead, ball your fists until your fingers turn white, and pretend to be anywhere else but where you are right now. You take a deep breath but don't exhale, just wait for the violence you know is coming for you. I learned how to do this in kindergarten when boys threw rocks at me because I didn't have parents, because I told our teacher I didn't want a husband, only a pet horse. Even then I knew what I was, though I wasn't smart enough to hide.
When I learned, finally, that I was gay, I realized I'd always been hiding, but all those years before, I just didn't know what I was hiding from, why my heart was always racing, why I always felt like I was only mimicking going through the motions of my girlhood.' - pages 66-67.
'Today his [Michael, the trans boy] confession is that he stared at himself in the mirror, stared at the body they'd turned into something not his own, and started to cry. "Like a girl," Hyde [the camp owner] says. "Good."' - page 72.
'The thing about nice homophobes is that they're the worst kind of homophobe. They'll smile at you on the street, maybe say that it would be okay if everyone could get married, but wouldn't it undermine the sanctity of marriage if the gays could too? They lull you into a false sense of security and make you feel safe enough that you'll let your guard down, and for a moment maybe entertain the idea of dropping your disguise. And then they metaphorically cut your throat.
I learned the type when I was in middle school: the girls who invite you over to dinner, girls whose parents will talk politics at the dinner table and say things about how they don't mind gay people as long as they don't have to see them or interact with them. They applaud themselves for their tolerance but vote for politicians who want to make gayness a mental illness again, then smile at you at church the next day. With every action they make to take away your rights, they adopt an air of phony shame, as if they actually cared about the consequences of their beliefs.
[...]
With men like Hyde, men who smile too kindly and act all fatherly while they erase your identity, the line between safe and not safe blurs in a way that scares me." - pages 93-94.
(Why the fuck doesn't my word processor recognise the word homophobe?)
A stunning debut by a passionate young author and poet, about all people needing and deserving to be set free to live.
From the book's copyright page: Content warning: There are scenes in this book that depict self-harm, homophobia, transphobia, and violence against LBGTQ characters.
Final Score: 3.5/5
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