"Cyrus Grace Dunham is such a tender, open, and nuanced writer, and his book allows itself to be messy and complicated in the name of unflinching honesty. A stunning account of both longing and belonging, A Year Without a Name made every corner of my heart sing."—Hanif Abdurraqib, New York Times bestsellingauthor of THEY CAN'T KILL US UNTIL THEY KILL US and GO AHEAD IN THE RAIN
"Cyrus Grace Dunham has written a classic memoir-passionate and clear eyed and unputdownable. I've never seen a gender journey rendered in more tender, riveting detail. Bravo to this extraordinary new voice."—Mary Karr, author of THE LIARS' CLUB, CHERRY, LIT, and THE ART OF MEMOIR
"Cyrus's book is raw, beautiful and uncompromisingly honest: a slippery, vital account of gender, family and the longing to be real. I read it with my heart in my mouth."—Olivia Laing, author of THE LONELY CITY and CRUDO
"A work of extraordinarily intimate confession rendered in startling, sparkling — and addictive — prose. With erudition, frankness, and eloquence, Dunham braids a propulsive narrative momentum together with exquisite particulars of daily life. This book, simply put, summons a private and deeply pleasurable exchange with its reader. In the grand tradition, it keeps us company."—Jordy Rosenberg,author of CONFESSIONS OF THE FOX
"A Year Without a Name is staggering, intimate, and astonishing; you can't help but be awed by the end of it. I'm grateful for the journey this memoir took me on, for what Dunham illuminates about loving ourselves and others."—Bryan Washington, author of LOT
"Cyrus Grace Dunham's memoir is unflinching. His unsettlement about gender is profound, his writing about it genuine and affecting. A Year Without a Name let me travel with Dunham on his difficult, sometimes treacherous, sometimes beautiful, always memorable path."—Lynne Tillman, author of MEN AND APPARITIONS
"Dunham's deeply felt, forthright, lucid accounting of the complex process of determining who they are is astonishing in its intimacy and generosity, and serves as a reminder of how difficult, but how necessary, it is to be honest with ourselves about who we know ourselves to be."
—Kristen Iversen, NYLON
"An honest, reflective reckoning well worth reading."—Tomi Obaro, BUZZFEED
"'Devotion is the closest thing I've known to a stable gender,' Dunham writes in this deeply intimate memoir. Lucid, unvarnished prose makes the book compulsively readable even as it wrestles with the weightiness of transition and identity."—O MAGAZINE
"Raw and powerful."—VOGUE
"It's a quick read, but punchy—nearly every sentence is sharp, full of importance, at once deeply intellectual and ethereal. Dunham navigates how confusing gender is: how useless it can be while also existing as an essential facet of identity. Dunham stays true to their unfinished story by packing a lot of meaning into just 176 pages but never reaching concrete conclusions. But the concrete would be antithetical to the story; Dunham lives in the truth that all of us are unfinished, forever growing and learning. This in itself is a very queer frame of thought."—REWIRE
"Shifting between identifying as Grace and Cyrus, Dunham gives readers an honest look at gender transition, solidifying their fresh voice in a crucial national conversation about gender and identity."—TIME
"A profoundly honest memoir written in succinct language that often has the power of a punch and resists tying up tricky situations in a neat bow."—ELLE
"Not all memoirists reckon with themselves as severely and provocatively as Dunham does, particularly when it comes to the weight, responsibility, and, at times, unwanted consequences of a name...A Year Without a Name teaches us that gender identity and names are not as static as we might have thought. In fact, both are more like the process of self-discovery - slippery, complicated, ongoing."—BUSTLE
"An anti-memoir, set against the idea that Cyrus, or you, or I, must believe one consistent story about our life...For Dunham, exploring gender and sex means exploring embodiment and uncertainty. They live in-and have sexual feelings within-a body that won't settle down, that does not seem to want to take clear form. It's a body, Dunham discovers, that needs to be valued as a kind of chrysalis."—THE ATLANTIC
"CyrusGrace Dunham has written a complicated, necessary addition to the transliterary canon. Readers get to know Cryus as Dunham getsto know Cyrus, and the memoir makes clear that one's journey to figuring outtheir gender is a messy, life-long process."—ADVOCATE
"In a scant 176 pages, Dunham pens a surprisingly wide existential exploration of what it means to be human; an honest, beautiful memoir that isn't afraid to live in the unknown."—SarahNeilson, LitHub
"His writing about family and notoriety is the richest and most perversely fascinating in the book, because it makes you feel queasy for finding it so magnetic. Fame is addressed with the same conflict and emotion that Cyrus devotes to his queerness and gender transition."—THE CUT
"Candid and compassionate, this book offers a view of one person's trans experience that defies categorization as much as it defies resolution. Elegant, eloquent, and deeply personal."—KIRKUS REVIEWS
"Cyrus Grace Dunham is a mess, and they aren't trying to hide it. In their new memoir, the writer and activist complicates accepted narratives about transgender folks - ones that are steeped in binary, essentialist notions about gender identity. Dunham isn't afraid to share their uncertainty about the source of their discontent with identity, whether it's more social, more physical, or a combination of both."—OUT MAGAZINE
2019-07-28
A journalist and activist's debut memoir about the fraught year preceding their decision to "correct my aberrated [gender] condition" and become a trans man.
Dunham knew from childhood that they were different. While their parents and friends "cherished me for being a little girl," the author knew that they were "tricking" those people. Adolescence was an especially traumatic time. The author felt compelled to fit in with girls but also secretly desired them and dreamed of tying them up. Filled with self-loathing for being a "pervert," Dunham deliberately tried to make their developing body disappear through starvation diets. As they grew into adulthood, they became increasingly aware of a misalignment between their body and their sense of who they were. This dysphoria created a "bodily claustrophobia" that made Dunham seek relief through painful relationships that never satisfied. The first was with a girl who told them that she wanted them to be "her best friend, her sister, her mother" but did not want them to be her lover. Another was with a lesbian woman who introduced Dunham to polyamory and an "existential dread" that wrought havoc with their sense of self. An especially intense relationship involved a bisexual woman who made Dunham feel that they were a "fiction" with no substance. Renewing acquaintance with a trans woman who had begun the journey toward physically manifesting femininity ultimately had the most profound effect on Dunham. That relationship forced them to not only confront the clearness of their existence and modes of desire. It also inspired Dunham to overcome a deep-seated fear of transforming their body to more closely match their complex inner identity. Candid and compassionate, this book offers a view of one person's trans experience that defies categorization as much as it defies resolution.
Elegant, eloquent, and deeply personal.
