THE COVER of Jennifer Finney Boylan’s new memoir, Cleavage: Men, Women and the Space Between Us (Celadon Books), features a famous photograph of actress Sophia Loren eyeing Jayne Mansfield’s copious décolletage. Boylan, who burst onto the scene with the bestselling memoir She’s Not There in 2003, is again interested in exploring what it means to be a man or a woman, and what the trans experience reveals, and how all this has changed since the year 2000.
Since 2010, the bestselling author has been the inaugural Anna Quindlen Writer-in-Residence and professor of English at Barnard College of Columbia University and a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. The author of nineteen books, her last publication was yet another new venture, Mad Honey (2022), a courtroom drama cowritten with Jodi Picoult after the two had agreed to write alternating chapters while isolated due to the pandemic. Mad Honey is not only a page-turner but a vehicle to help American moms—women like my mother and her sisters, who make up much of Picoult’s fan base—to wrap their minds around issues related to trans identity.
I interviewed Boylan fifteen years ago for this magazine (May–June 2011 issue), and again this spring, via email, for this issue.
Colin Carman: I did my homework and re-read The Planets, your 1991 novel published under the name of James Finney Boylan. It’s set in “Centralia, Pennsylvania.” I also re-read Long Black Veil (2017), a novel set in Philadelphia. How has your relationship with your home state changed over the years?
Jennifer Finney Boylan: I only know one or two old high school pals in PA now, so I hardly ever get back there anymore. Channeling my inner James Thurber, though, I can assure you that in all my dreams, the clocks that tick are the “clocks of Pennsylvania.” I miss it. Like Centralia itself (the site of The Planets), mostly the Pennsylvania I dream about is one that only exists in memory.
That was kind of you to visit The Planets—it is such a wild story! I wrote it during the first year of my marriage, and I was filled with so much hope and joy. I love the way all the characters orbit around each other. Lots of goofy little touches. The character representing Mars has two daughters, Phoebe and Demi, echoing the moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos. The character representing Jupiter has one red eye—the one representing Saturn wears lots of rings. And then there’s the chapter “Asteroids,” in which I visit all these tiny stories of people adjacent to the main story—like they are busted up fragments of bigger planets. And so on. It’s a ton of fun.
I originally wanted to write a trilogy—with The Constellations as book two. But Constellations was a dud. I got lost while I was writing it, and should have worked on something else. It was a classic second book problem, although actually, since my first book was the short story collection Remind Me to Murder You Later, Planets was number two. The third book was going to be The Galaxies—but it never happened. Someday maybe I’ll go back to it.
My third novel after Constellations was Getting In. True Boylan enthusiasts will note that one of the college tour guides (it’s a novel about a family taking the college tour in New England) is Phoebe, the youngest daughter in Planets. So she had one little visit. Maybe I’ll stick her in another story someday.
CC: Let’s get President Trump and politics out of the way right off the bat: Pennsylvanians went for Trump in the largest Republican margin since 1988. How do you explain their support for him and his baffling appeal to working-class Americans?
JFB: I don’t know. I guess people thought that having a convicted rapist and failed businessman who is also a convicted felon would be better than having a woman of color as president. [Editor’s note: In May 2023, a jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse against advice columnist E. Jean Carroll but rejected her allegation of rape.]
CC: Trump was still in campaign mode when he addressed Congress and declared that there are only two sexes, male and female. He even went so far as to showcase a female student who allegedly was injured by a trans athlete. Why has the trans sports issue become such a lightning rod?
JFB: Because understanding trans stuff, and the sports question in particular, takes nuance and compassion and wisdom. We don’t do that stuff so much anymore. Really, the sports thing is infuriating. Tell me that this is really a national problem, requiring the full attention of the Executive Branch. As if the people who are all blue in the face about trans women in sports ever gave two flying fucks about women’s sports before. Or women in general. Just about the only thing about women’s lives that kept them awake before was the hope of taking away our right to abortion.
CC: I reached out to a friend of mine who is currently transitioning and is a big fan of yours. I asked her to formulate a question, and she wrote: “These are very hard times for trans people, especially young trans people who want and need to play a sport. As a parent, what would you say to a trans youth who’s told ‘No, you can’t play’”?
JFB: I would gently explain that the world can be a place in which mean men and women sometimes hurt people, but that sometimes people act mean because they’re afraid. But I would make it clear that there is nothing wrong with the child, and that there are more good people than mean ones in this world, and that we can help mean people be nicer by treating them with love. And then I would tell the child in no uncertain terms: “I will play with you.”
CC: You had a foray into reality television, a show titled I Am Cait, in which you road-tripped with Caitlyn Jenner. Talk about a wild ride. How do you think about that experience now?
JFB: Caitlyn turned out to be as dumb as a bag of hammers. I hoped to open her heart by teaching her about the lives that trans people live, but in the end she was less interested in that than in the stupidity to which she was committed. It broke my heart. I really liked her, and think she had the potential to do great good in the world. I don’t think the show was especially well cast, though I came to love the women I traveled with.
There was one night that kind of summed it up for me. We were all in Chicago, and at the symphony hall a pianist was performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20. I proposed that we all go together. But instead everyone was determined to go to a local drag show, where we stuffed dollar bills into the G-string panties of someone dressed up like Liza Minelli.
I get drag and celebrate it as art. It has been a way of finding expression when there were no avenues available for that—and also it has created a loyal, fierce community. I love all that. Still, there are lots of women (and men) in the trans community who are at least as interested in books and ideas and music as they are with people lip-syncing to Gloria Gaynor. It is worth noting that in Caitlyn’s Malibu mansion I never once saw a book. Although Fox News was blasting from big TVs all day long.
CC: Your previous memoirs, She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders (2003) and I’m Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted (2008), both take their titles from famous songs, and I know, having worked with you in Maine, of your love for music. Why “Cleavage” as the title of your latest memoir—which, you told the Times, you did not especially want to write?
JFB: Did I say that? I wonder what I meant. I was psyched to write this book, taking stock of where the movement has been over the last 25 years. I guess I hoped, though, that the occasion of writing a bookend to She’s Not There would mark a moment when we could celebrate our progress instead of mourning all that we have lost, at least for now.
I wanted to write about the fullness of a trans woman’s life, instead of focusing on transition. So many books about and by trans people are about transition—Chaz Bono even gave his book that title. But life goes on, and I wanted to write more broadly about the differences I experienced Before and After, in everything from love to loss, from food to fashion. There were a lot of stories to tell, and earlier ones I wanted to revisit.
The title came from my looking at the thesaurus one day, looking up words that meant division. Cleavage jumped out at me as a “contronym,” a word that means both itself and its opposite. Which, in addition to evoking images of breasts and bosoms, also is a good way of thinking about the life of a trans person.
CC: At my university, the LGBT group hosts an ask-me-anything booth where they try to explain the current nomenclature, “they-them,” “cis-male,” “nonbinary,” “transphobic,” etc., to other students unfamiliar with, and sometimes hostile to, these ideas. Why are pronouns important?
JFB: Pronouns are important because it’s an act of human kindness, or generosity, to call people by the names, and the words, that they have chosen. I’m not Catholic, but I’d call the pope “Your Holiness.” I’m not a British subject, but I’d call King Charles “Your Majesty.” I don’t know her, but I’d call Cherilyn Bono Allman “Cher.” Because that is the name she has chosen. I don’t have to totally grok pronouns like “zir” or “zem.” Who asked me to pass judgment on anyone anyhow? It’s about respect.
CC: Two things in your response to an interviewer with People magazine teed up two more questions: “[Cleavage] jumps around in time,” you said of the book. And: “Things keep threading back, which is the thing I love to do as a writer. I love to weave things together into a mosaic. I think Cleavage might be a little bit of a harder read, but that’s good. It should be hard. I mean, the life that made it, the life that it’s about, was hard.”
JFB: I like classical music, and jazz, and (forgive me) the Grateful Dead, because their compositions give artists and writers and performers a chance to engage in long thoughts, long forms. I think my writing aspires to music. Something I might have mentioned 100 pages earlier can come back, in a new form, and is experienced in a new way. Because its meaning has been changed by the intervening story.
CC: Cleavage jumps around in time, but so does your entire career: educator, memoirist, novelist, collaborator, columnist for The Times. Genre-wise, you keep switching lanes and, in Cleavage, you’re time-traveling. Is this by design?
JFB: We learn from Ovid that none of us is any one thing. I think that switching lanes is exactly what we’re supposed to do as humans. Otherwise, you can get stuck driving behind the same slowpoke all the way to Maine.
CC: You have said that Cleavage is more “truthful” than your earlier memoirs. How so? What were you prepared to share that you were reluctant to reveal in years past?
JFB: I think some of my work—especially She’s Not There—had an air of apology to it, like, “please love me even though I’m trans; I’m so sorry if this is upsetting.” I’m kind of over apologizing, to tell you the truth. I am grateful for this life and don’t need anyone else’s permission to be happy.
CC: Your use of the past tense alarmed me in Cleavage, as in “the life … was hard.” I assume this doesn’t mean that you’ve stopped writing. So, what are you working on or thinking about working on, and in what genre?
JFB: Well, yeah. Don’t let anyone fool you—being trans is hard. For me it was harder before I came out, though I know lots of people for whom the opposite was true. Nevertheless, there is plenty more to come from me. I will continue to write essays for The Times and The Washington Post—at least as long as the Post doesn’t consider telling stories about people like me to be anti-American or something. I understand that in the future their opinion page will focus on free markets and personal liberties or some such. Well, I’m happy to write about personal liberty. I’m the fuckin’ personal liberty poster child.
CC: You told People: ”It’s hard to be old and to see the world that you have fought for, destroyed.” But you also referenced a new generation of writers, including Torrey Peters. What other writers excite you, and what keeps you optimistic?
JFB: I suspect this is trans apostasy, but I’m more interested in stories than authors. The best books I’ve read in the last year are probably Wellness, by Nathan Hill, and The Bee Sting, by Paul Murray. It’s powerful work. My favorite trans authors are Kate Bornstein and Charlotte Clymer. Charlotte, along with Torrey, is part of a new generation, and it’s interesting to me to watch the discourse shift and evolve over time.
CC: You have busted—pun-intended—so many boundaries on and off the page. In closing, the aforesaid trans friend also asked if you might offer some words of hope during these dark times.
JFB: Well, first off, these are dark times. But we have seen dark times before. In the short run, there’s nothing wrong with taking care of yourself, protecting your heart, whatever you can, when you’re feeling broken. If possible, try not to let the clowns live in your head. Focus on policy, if you have to, and work for change. But don’t get sucked into the daily ritual of shouting into the void online. Most of all though, walk tall, and be proud; and be happy, as best you can, because if you’re trans you’re a superhero—a precious soul who has had to rise above things that most people can’t understand. Greet each day with auspiciousness and joy and be glad for this life. Oh, how they hate it when we are happy. Let them see your wisdom and joy and grace. They can take lots of things away from us, but they cannot take that. One way or another, this darkness has to give.
Colin Carman is an assistant professor of English at Colorado Mesa University. His forthcoming book is titled A Friend of Mine: Bob Dylan & Allen Ginsberg.
