Some Strange Music Draws Me In (UK Edition) - Griffin Hansbury Audiobook

Written by Griffin Hansbury
Read by Oliver James Parkins
Format: M4B
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

It’s summer, 1984, in blue-collar Swaffham, Massachusetts. Mel is thirteen, drinking a Slush Puppie at the drugstore, when she hears a voice, ‘deep and movie-star dramatic, like Lauren Bacall’: Sylvia.

What follows is a story of transgender awakening. Sylvia’s shameless swagger and tough-girl trans femininity is an affront to the Swaffham locals, and her presence triggers hatred and, ultimately, violence. But it is also a catalyst for Mel. Through her friendship with Sylvia, Mel comes to realize that not only is there a world beyond Swaffham, there are other ways of being, free from the class and gender roles embodied by her cruel, vulnerable mother Irene or her best friend, the troubled Jules.

Narrating this blistering coming-of-age tale from the present day is Max–formerly Mel, long since transitioned–who finds himself back in Swaffham while on leave from his job for defying speech codes around trans identity.

In prose rich with allusions to Carson McCullers, Jan Morris and Patti Smith, Some Strange Music Draws Me In is a compassionate, gripping and emotionally charged narrative. In focusing on the pre-transition subject, Griffin Hansbury explores the dangerous forces they often must escape to survive.