Rust Belt Femme

by Raechel Anne Jolie

Overview

An NPR Best Book: “[Jolie's] story is both remarkable and utterly ordinary; any dreamy kid who grew up broke and weird will see a spark of themselves.” ―The New Republic
 
One of NPR’s Best Books of 2020
Winner, Independent Publisher Awards Gold Medal for LGBTQ+ nonfiction
 
Raechel Anne Jolie’s early life in a working-class Cleveland exurb was full of race cars, Budweiser-drinking men covered in car grease, and the women who loved them. After her father came home from his third-shift job, took the garbage out to the curb and was hit by a drunk driver, her life changed.
 
Raechel and her mother struggled for money: they were evicted, went days without utilities, and took their trauma out on one another. Raechel escaped to the progressive suburbs of Cleveland Heights, leaving the tractors and ranch-style homes in favor of a city with vintage marquees, music clubs, and people who talked about big ideas. It was the early ’90s, full of Nirvana songs and chokers, flannel shirts and cut-off jean shorts, lesbian witches and local coffee shops. Rust Belt Femme is the story of how these twin foundations―rural Ohio poverty and alternative ’90s culture―made Raechel into who she is today: a queer femme with PTSD and a deep love of the Midwest.
 
“A sharp coming-of-age portrait.” ―Kirkus Reviews
 
“This miraculous little book manages to plumb the depths of poverty, trauma, punk rock, maternal devotion, young love, and queer identity in language that is lyric and precise. I was blown away. You will be too.” —Steve Almond, New York Times–bestselling author of Truth is the Arrow, Mercy is the Bow

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781948742788
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	05/01/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	157
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Raechel Anne Jolie is a writer, educator, and media maker. Raechel received her PhD in Communication Studies with a minor in Gender & Sexuality Studies from the University of Minnesota. Her writing has been published in numerous a

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"With Rust Belt Femme, Raechel Anne Jolie unveils a crystal ball, releasing a vivid love letter to her past, her mother, herself, and to Cleveland. Her clarity about how she became who she is takes us through an iconic time we may all have experienced, no matter where we are from. She takes us through her early relationships, showing how each of them helped her grow into her person, and you stay with her through the end, knowing she will somehow come out the other side. Her stunning writing alone makes me want to become a better writer." — Iliana Regan, author of Burn the Place

"This book is emotional and powerful: it is deeply femme. With intimacy and care, every page brings with it a rich sense of place and time, every story shows the complex realities of working-class life. Enthralling from beginning to end."—Otter Lieffe, author of Margins and Murmurations

"As glowing and gritty as the Ohio lightning bugs Jolie writes about with such lyricism, this book is pure working-class queer femme magic. I feel the Midwestern ghosts palpably, all of them: historical, ancestral, emotional. Jolie has achieved at once a love letter to Ohio, a celebration of femme ancestors, and an ode to the complex relationships between mothers and daughters. Laced with equal doses of trauma, heartache, nostalgia, and hope, this book allows the reader to be profoundly seen — and invited into healing. We all need more of this work." — Shannon Weber, author of Feminism in Minutes

"Raechel Anne Jolie’s powerful debut memoir delves deep into the pain and beauty of coming of- age in working-class America at the turn of the twenty-first century. Multifaceted and vividly drawn, Rust Belt Femme seamlessly moves from tragedy to love, from basements pulsing with punk music to rooms and rooftops where sex and desire prompt leaps into great unknowns. Jolie is a rare and vital talent, a masterful storyteller with a riveting and necessary story to tell."— Jason Allen, author of The East End and A Meditation on Fire

"Raechel Anne Jolie harnesses the interwoven beauty and trauma of coming of age femme in a tough part of our broken country. Compassionate and political, queer and punk and angry, Rust Belt Femme shows with grace and grit how community can save your life." —Michelle Tea, author of How to Grow Up: A Memoir

"Rust Belt Femme is a brilliant mixed tape of a memoir, a love song to the family and friends, the songs and sacred places, that helped Raechel Anne Jolie grow into the fierce thinker and passionate writer she is. This miraculous little book manages to plumb the depths of poverty, trauma, punk rock, maternal devotion, young love, and queer identity in language that is lyric and precise. I was blown away. You will be too." — Steve Almond, author of Candyfreak and co-creator of "Dear Sugar"

Editorial Reviews

"Coming-of-age memoirs work best when the author is unafraid to dig deep into the context of their childhood, as well as the actual events. In her debut memoir, Rust Belt Femme, Raechel Anne Jolie gets it: On the surface, Femme is an exploration of trauma, queer identity and determination in the life of a Midwest kid trapped in a cycle of poverty and tragedy. But Jolie also stages this achingly personal story against the backdrop of the 1990s and early 2000s, with punk, emo and indie music playing as much of a role in her young life as the working-class environs that she rebelled against – and that she eventually came to grips with."— Jason Heller, NPR Book Concierge's "Best Books of 2020"

"A sharp coming-of-age portrait." — Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2019-10-29
A queer feminist activist celebrates her roots in what she proudly calls "white trash" culture.

Though Jolie left behind her native Ohio in 2003 and went on to earn her doctorate and become "firmly queer," she insists that "home home has always been Cleveland. Even when it hasn't been." The blue-collar neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city provide the setting for the author's story, which begins with a harrowing account of her father's accident: He was hit by a drunk driver, crippling him and leaving him brain damaged and often violently enraged at his fate. After a year at home, he returned to the care of his mother, who had strained relations with Jolie's mother, who then raised her daughter on her own. "Being poor is written in my blood and my bones as much as it is sung from my tight skirts and cheap lipstick," writes the author. "Being poor, really, became the building blocks of my gender; this embodied expression we in the queer community call femme. It's a type of femininity that I have come to realize is inextricable from the shape of early poverty, the shades of the rural edges of Cleveland, and for me, the sound of punk." Many of her rites-of-passage initiations into sexuality and punk culture, the two intertwined, were heterosexual, at least as recounted in these pages, but her embrace of "femme" and her cultural analysis are particularly illuminating. In her explanation, femme "was formed by the working poor, and it wasn't for men. Rather than appeasing the male gaze, femmes got dressed for the pleasure of their butches and for the pleasure of their own damn reflection in the mirror. And it was, or became, a little exaggerated….A femme instinct to up the sex appeal to better spite the male gaze." It seems that well before she came to terms with her sexual identity, she knew what she liked, and she communicates her feelings effectively to readers.

A sharp coming-of-age portrait.

Kirkus Reviews