On Community

Description

Finalist for the 2024 Firecracker Award in Creative Nonfiction Shortlisted for the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction Finalist for the 2024 Leslie Feinberg Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature One ofCBC Books Canadian Nonfiction to Read in the Fall ATyeeBest Book of 2023 ACBC BooksBest Nonfiction Book of 2023 AHamilton Review of BooksBest Book of 2023 AnAutostraddleBest Queer Book of 2023We need community to live. But what does it look like? Why does it often feel like its slipping away?We are all hinged to some definition of a community, be it as simple as where we live, complex as the beliefs we share, or as intentional as those we call family. In an episodic personal essay, Casey Plett draws on a range of firsthand experiences to start a conversation about the larger implications of community as a word, an idea, and a symbol. With each thread a cumulative definition of community, and what it has come to mean to Plett, emerges.Looking at phenomena from transgender literature, to Mennonite history, to hacker houses of Silicon Valley, and the rise of nationalism in North America, Plett delves into the thorny intractability of communitys boons and faults. Deeply personal, authoritative in its illuminations,On Communityis an essential contribution to the larger cultural discourse that asks how, and to what socio-political ends, we form bonds with one another.Praise forOn CommunityOn Communitya book-length personal essaydelves into the different ways we imagine our communities and the people who form them.Globe and MailDont expect to walk away fromOn Communitywith easy answers. Plett refuses to explore the titular concept blithely or to simplify it to the point of untruth. Splitting it into practical and theoretical definitions is too simple. Instead, she weaves together a nuanced narrative that unpacks the terms intricacies while maintaining its importance.Literary Review of CanadaA tightly woven, academic and literary brain dump of concepts and notions, posits and prompts, with a flight of challenging questions.The Miramichi ReaderPlett uses her firsthand experiences to eventually reach a cumulative definition of community and explore how we form bonds with one another.CBC BooksPlett ruminates on the importance of community in succinct, snappy prose.Winnipeg Free PressInsightful . . . Plett opens the doors to so many rich conversations about what communityin all its iterationscan and cannot do.Laura Sackton,Book RiotA spiral of thoughts and anecdotes organized around questions concerning what it means to be part of the queer and trans communities,On Community. . . is a heartfelt, funny, wistful readjust conceptually rigorous enough to provoke thought, but without difficult theory or jargon.Kristina Rothstein,GeistAmidst definitions and (re)interpretations of community, Casey Plett truly embodies the nuances, spits on assumptions and holds space for the real, the ugly, the bittersweet and everything in between.The Ex PuritanWith humour and verve, Plett cuts through the platitudes often associated with how we talk about community. She offers a welcome, incisive analysis of power and belonging that feels as lived-in as it is hopeful.The TyeeEqual parts opinionated and open-minded,On Communityis an insightful, personal, provocative and urgent little pamphlet that, I think, any member of the living human community should get their hands on.Scout MagazinePletts essay is a thoughtful, rich and engaging unpacking of the complexity behind simplistic ideas, and a clear-eyed consideration of what really is a universal human experience.Pickle Me ThisPlett reflects on her Mennonite roots, trans literature, nationalism, Silicon Valley, and the idea of family, in this consideration of how and why we manage to live together at all.Quill and QuirePraise for Casey PlettPlett has a characteristic style that manages to merge tenderness with Prairie toughnessa style on display in these stories of trans women seeking somethinggroundedness, maybe, but that dreamlike quality of desire, too.Globe and MailPletts trademark skills at authentic characterization, evocative setting, and insight into the lives of trans women are on full display in this superb collection of short stories. The stories crackle with quiet complexity.Autostraddle(Best Queer Books of the Year)Plett tells beautiful stories of trans women as they exist in the world: tangible, fallible, tender and hardened.XtraIve always admired Pletts ability to capture the tenderest and most complicated intimacies between characters. Exploring addiction, loss, consent, and shifting desires, each story in her extraordinary new collection is somehow even more tender and emotionally complex than the last.Megan Milks,The RumpusBoth bittersweet and beautiful, Plett writes perfectly imperfect characters that make you feel less alone.The Independent(UK)