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speculativebecky 's review for:
A Year Without a Name: A Memoir
by Cyrus Grace Dunham
From the very first page of their 2019 memoir, Cyrus Grace Dunham asserts that their story won’t be neat and tidy, that they will prioritize truth over a clean narrative with a concrete end. With that they set the tone for the entirety of this short complicated memoir, detailing mainly a single year in their life in which they wrestle with questions of name, identity, and transition.
Reading this memoir is intentionally uncomfortable, as you sit alongside Dunham in their discomfort, their fraught relationship with girlhood, a life spent feeling their body was not their own and without a steadying sense of grounding in a defined correct path forward to alleviate that feeling. They delve deeply into their romantic relationships, deftly exploring a pattern of extreme devotion to another and how it serves as a coping mechanism, and skim the surface of depression and their experiences with dissociation induced panic attacks. Their self awareness is notable, even as this book consists so much of questions without answers, and existing in a middle space of not knowing.
With this book, Dunham is doing exactly their own thing. I respect that, and quite enjoyed reading. After getting past a little difficulty with the flourishes of their writing style, I finished this memoir in two fully immersed sittings. Would recommend, particularly to fans of queer writing or untidy memoirs.
Reading this memoir is intentionally uncomfortable, as you sit alongside Dunham in their discomfort, their fraught relationship with girlhood, a life spent feeling their body was not their own and without a steadying sense of grounding in a defined correct path forward to alleviate that feeling. They delve deeply into their romantic relationships, deftly exploring a pattern of extreme devotion to another and how it serves as a coping mechanism, and skim the surface of depression and their experiences with dissociation induced panic attacks. Their self awareness is notable, even as this book consists so much of questions without answers, and existing in a middle space of not knowing.
With this book, Dunham is doing exactly their own thing. I respect that, and quite enjoyed reading. After getting past a little difficulty with the flourishes of their writing style, I finished this memoir in two fully immersed sittings. Would recommend, particularly to fans of queer writing or untidy memoirs.