Manywhere

Starred review from November 22, 2021
Thomas’s visionary and keenly observed debut collection concerns itself with searchers (the book is dedicated to “anyone who’s gone looking for themselves in the archives”). In several stories, contemporary queer people attempt to track down historical echoes of themselves, whether in possibly forged letters by an intersex member of the Jamestown colony (“The Daring Life of Philippa Cook the Rogue”); an oral history about a namesake’s disappearance (“The Expectation of Cooper Hill”); or, in “Taylor Johnson’s Lightning Man,” a photo from Ellis Island of a woman who wore men’s clothes and hawked lightning rods. Other protagonists turn misunderstandings into opportunities for personal mythmaking. “Transit” follows a teenage nonbinary person on their way home from an eating disorder treatment center who tells a fellow train passenger they’re a vampire, a running joke from the treatment center that gets taken literally. In “Bump,” crossed wires between co-workers lead a trans woman to fake a pregnancy. Throughout, Thomas renders their characters’ explorations in rhythmic litanies (“I took it off. The bump settled into the concavity of the sink. I envied the sink for so easily cupping it. How long did I stand there, considering the shape of my body, bumpless, the two separate shapes?”). This profoundly illuminates how the characters come by the stories they tell and those they choose to tell themselves. Agent: Meredith Kaffel Simonoff, DeFiore & Co.

Starred review from December 15, 2021
Nine stories about queer, genderqueer, and trans characters seeking insight and actualization. The characters in Thomas' debut story collection, as different and sui generis as they are, are all seekers, whether sifting through archives for any echoes of themselves in the historical record or reinventing themselves by way of elaborate, sometimes convoluted forms of self-mythologizing. For instance, "Taylor Johnson's Lightning Man," the opening story, follows Taylor, a young person on a mission to discover anything they can about Frank Woodhull, a woman who came to Ellis Island dressed in men's clothing and went on to peddle lightning rods, and with whom Taylor uncannily identifies. "The Daring Life of Philippa Cook the Rogue" is told through contemporary emails and historical documents, all inquiring into the figure of Philippa Cook, a member of the Jamestown colony who historians agree was intersex. Shoo Caddick, the author of the emails, is an actor who's convinced that they're "a sort of reincarnation" of Philippa. Stories like "Bump" and "Transit," on the other hand, introduce characters who reinvent themselves via misunderstandings that often veer toward the uncanny or absurd. In "Transit," a nonbinary teenager riding a train home from an eating-disorder clinic inadvertently convinces a fellow passenger that they're a vampire. "Bump," one of the collection's most compelling stories, follows a trans woman's relationship with an artificial baby belly, a co-dependency that develops as her polyamorous partner and his wife get pregnant. The characters in these stories feel fully alive; they reveal their rich and endlessly vibrant interiors through indefatigable exploration and textured thoughts. As inventive as some of Thomas' storytelling decisions can be, they are never precious or self-indulgent but serve to cast light on the characters' complex and ever shifting desires. Innovative stories that probe the ineluctable bond between storytelling and identity.

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