Reviews with content warning for Pedophilia - Ich und die anderen

The subject of this book is fascinating. I think the author did a good job of exploring the themes of trauma, abuse, and mental illness (in this case, multiple personality disorder), which are obviously quite dark and heavy, in a respectful but still entertaining way. The scenes weren't unnecessarily graphic and gory, but there was enough description for the character's horror and terror to be transmitted to the reader. I believe it was handled tactfully (no weird fetishization of violence, as is so often seen in these types of novels) and interwoven with a solid (and strangely wholesome) character development, making for an interesting exploration of the human condition.

There was a nice balance between a mysterious and suspenseful plot that needed to be solved and the slower and more reflective, but no less engaging, personal and relational development of the characters.
I found the development of the relationships between characters (Andrew and Penny, Andrew and Julie), and in particular among the multiple identities within the main character's mind, to be super interesting, and I ended up feeling very attached to most of the household inhabitants.

In addition, I'm not sure if this was purposefully done by the author, or was just a byproduct of the particular circumstances around having MPD, but I thought the questions raised around gender and identity were really interesting, particularly in a situation where multiple identities sharing a body make it so that the "biological sex" of "the body" is obviously not relevant at all for the concept of identity.

I was a tiny bit disappointed at the ending because it wasn't as "closed" as I wanted it to be, but it also didn't feel forced or wrong for the characters themselves, so it is purely a personal taste issue.

Content Warnings

yarnycharlie's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

To be honest, it was a well written book. I flew through it. I enjoyed most of the book as long as I ignore the parts of the book that I'm going to talk about in the spoiler tag. If you are trans I recommend reading the spoiler below before getting into this book.

I picked up this book because it won the Otherwise Award, which is nominally for explorations of gender. Here are my opinions on this book's exploration of gender.

First, I believe that IRL there are infinite ways to be trans (I, myself, am non-binary and am not trying to speak for the transmasculine experience). So when speaking below, I am not saying that a trans person "must" do these things in order to be trans enough to write about. It's ok to not have dysphoria, it's ok to not want to medically transition, it's ok to decide that you don't want to be called trans. I am speaking specifically to the book, which is, as far as I know, written by a cis man and the responsibility that IMO he has toward marginalized groups that he is (purposefully or not) portraying. There is a lot of places to discuss how and when to write the "other" (i.e. experiences of people with marginalized identities that you do not share), so I won't go there other than to say that writing a marginalized identity does not have to have a "purpose" in your story (i.e. we are here every day doing normal stuff too), but if there is a purpose the author should take a step back and decide if this is the right story that they should be telling (i.e. should a cis author be telling a story of a trans person where the only time their gender is relevant is in relation to trauma or sexualized violence?). .

There is one place where Andy's gender is relevant to the story. First, on that 238th page (of 479 in my copy), Andy is making out with another character and she reaches down between his legs expecting a penis and doesn't find one. Andy does not think of himself as a trans man nor does he nor any of his on-screen souls contemplate their own or anyone else's gender for even a moment. The long and short of what Andy or any of his souls have to say about it is "the body is female". We get detailed descriptions of his daily routines and there is none of the accoutrement that we might expect an author to use to signal a character's transness pre or post-transition (i.e. binders, HRT, etc). Other than a briefly mistaken and quickly realized misgendering of Andy's voice early in the book, there are no hints. This leads be to believe that this was supposed to be a surprise to the reader.

I was so flabbergasted that an author would put a trans character in this position, a situation where many trans people, especially sex workers, have been murdered. Even in the era when this was released (2003), the "gay panic defense" was well known as an attempted defense of murder. The author not only put his character in this situation, even if it only ended in rejection, he also did not equip the character with the knowledge to predict or avoid the situation (i.e. none of the elder souls in Andy told Andrew that this might be an issue and, thinking on it, I don't think they thought it would be since later in the book everyone who knew him as a younger person seems to treat Andy as a strange quirky affectation of the girl they knew). After the situation ends, there is still no reflection on gender or change in behavior.

It could be argued that his gender is relevant in the last section of the book, but I disagree. Other than aggressive and repeated deadnaming and misgendering (which seems to bother no one but the reader), if Andy had not been trans this entire plot could have proceeded with only the change to his actual name and pronouns.

Assuming that our version of the book is one where Andy is a cis man, the only other section that would have to change in order to achieve verisimilitude in tone is where Andy's mother says that she's glad her daughter is going to college because now she won't have to compete for her husband's affection (since right now his "affection" is focused on molesting and raping Andy).

It's pretty clear to me that this "plot twist" was there to titillate cis readers rather than to explore anything about gender. So 3 stars from me and a mental revocation of the Otherwise Award (regardless of whether the award hedges reader ire by saying it awards to infuriating works as well).

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