“You can never win at playing the cis game. You can win on so much, but you will never win that…I hate that they make me choose. I hate it like I hate almost nothing else,” (Plett 125).
Thirty-year-old Wendy Reimer’s Mennonite grandmother has just died. After an awkward funeral service, Wendy ends up learning that her late grandfather might have also been transgender. But Wendy has more important things to think about as she and her friends struggle through the challenges of living as out transwomen in Winnipeg. But after struggling with alcoholism, sex work, and the death of a dear friend, Wendy continues to be drawn to her grandfather’s life, and she decides that she wants answers.
This is a gorgeous book. Plett does an excellent job writing about Wendy’s life, its joys, it’s mundanity, the ups and downs. I loved reading about Wendy’s time with her friends, her relationship with her father, and her understanding of transness. Little Fish does an excellent job in really putting readers in that cold, Winnipeg setting as well as balancing the love she experiences with her friends and father and the dangers as she lives as a transwoman and during sex work. There’s always an undercurrent of fear, like something could go wrong at any moment which is an unfortunate reality for many queer and trans people.
The book is strongly written, the dialogue feels real and I enjoyed following Wendy on her journey. I thought Plett wrote about addiction very well and think it was important to show how difficult it can be for someone to acknowledge that they are an addict. I also enjoyed how Plett showed Wendy’s hesitancy of wanting to know more about her devout Mennonite grandfather, whether or not he was trans or queer, and whether or not knowing that changed anything for her. It was a great examination of how queer and trans people have always been here, existing as they could when society tried to stop them from doing so and how society still tries to keep queer and trans people from existing despite the progress that has been made.
Little Fish is a wonderful novel that I know many queer and trans readers will relate to. Plett is unafraid to write about the light and darkness that exists in the world and does it in a beautifully, heartbreaking way.
Publication: April 1 2018
Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press
Pages: 295 pages (Paperback)
Source: Owned
Genre: Fiction, Queer, Trans, Canadian, Contemporary
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤⛤
Summary:
In this extraordinary debut novel by the author of the Lambda Literary Award-winning story collection A Safe Girl to Love, Wendy Reimer is a thirty-year-old trans woman who comes across evidence that her late grandfather—a devout Mennonite farmer—might have been transgender himself. At first she dismisses this revelation, having other problems at hand, but as she and her friends struggle to cope with the challenges of their increasingly volatile lives—from alcoholism, to sex work, to suicide—Wendy is drawn to the lost pieces of her grandfather’s life, becoming determined to unravel the mystery of his truth. Alternately warm-hearted and dark-spirited, desperate and mirthful, Little Fish explores the winter of discontent in the life of one transgender woman as her past and future become irrevocably entwined.
Sarah O'Connor 