#saint abernathy

[corvid-cryptidd]

Diversity win the ghost you’re seeing is trans and gay

[cjh-137]

I humbly offer my Saint and Miles Abernathy drawings

[the-siren890]

A Deeply Personal and EXTREMELY Subjective Reading of Compound Fracture

There has been a lot of talk online about lgbt fiction and the importance of adding queer themes and experiences to it. Without that you have “Gay” fiction. Media that panders to straight people and their views. Often giving a very sanitized and clean depiction of queer relationships.

“Queer” fiction is made for actually queer people. Common themes of prejudice, isolation, movement and protests, finding company in other people like you.

A theme that often isn't dealt with in queer fiction is family history and legacy. At least not in a positive manner. Queer stories cast a doubt on these topics, and are often about defying or outright abandoning them.

Which kind of comes with the territory. A lot of queer people -after coming out- are either rejected by their families or feel isolated as “they're so different now.”

So why is reading such an aggressively queer book with such themes feel so liberating? refreshing? I can't even describe it.

The Abernathys’ history is one full of trauma and hurt. Their legacy, one of shame. Their name dragged through the mud and decay. Unlike the Davies their legacy is a curse, a foretelling of death.

But like isn't that just what being queer is. That's what it has always felt for me. An identity that foretells oppression and hardship. Lgbt as a word has a reference to the aids epidemic. It was originally Glbt but when lesbians were the only group willing to care for those infected, it was changed.

But queer history is relieving too. Saint Abernathy is a literal role model to Miles. Do you know how it feels to read history and know that while you might be ostracized by your family now your ancestors would have welcomed you with open arms? To know that people like you walked this earth?

But it's a bittersweet relief. The real tragedy Saint Abernathy's life is in not what happened but what he could have been, the life he could have lived that was ruthlessly taken from him.

324,029 men and women died in the AIDS epidemic. This statistic alone is horrifying. These people aren't just numbers on a page, they're people with lives, jobs, friends and families. People who were denied the simple luxury of growing old and living a comfortable life. As if it's such a big ask.

That's what Compound Fracture -and much of AJW's writing- is to me. It's a deeply angry book, it's a book that claws and scratches and burns. Burns because isn't it infuriating? To see and learn and read about all these shitty things that happened simply because people were too bigoted, because the man on top always wins? Because that's how things are?

I love that so much about his books. So much of my teen years was spent angry. I realized I was queer early on, genderfluid later on. Reading his books is a catharsis. For once in my life my anger is understood and almost justified. I'm not overreacting or letting my emotions get the better in me, I don't feel inhuman for having them.

I love the Abernathys, the beloved underdogs of the story. The ones that loved each other because of all the blood. The people that held onto hope for a better life and fought nail and tooth for it. This sounds very corny but it is the moral of the book I feel. Love and hope above all, inspiring people to change their lives for the better. There's no use in denying it.

[crowdrinkingcoffee]

authentic railroad dogspike. miles abernathy made me buy it.

i believe it was sharp once but was made blunt for child safety.

also i rode a train and julian assange was there???? that was random.

[oldtvandcomics]

Compound Fracture is a Book About History and Legacy

Finally finished Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White. There is A LOT that this book has got going for it, but what sticks out the most to me is just how heavy it is with history.

It's something that you see a lot in Black fiction, this emphasis on ancestry and family heritage. Black Panther (2018), to name the example that everyone knows, or if we are at queer horror novels, Virginia Black's Consecrated Ground. Both a very much about family, about the land the family has ties to, and about the new generation's responsibilities to carry on this legacy. I haven't really seen it in white fiction before, at least not US American white fiction.

I especially have not seen it in queer fiction before.

Queer fiction deals a lot with alienation from the family. Characters either get kicked out, leave on their own free will, or have this strong feeling of alienation hanging over their heads. There is no connection to the past. Even the ones who are on good terms with their families, like the movie Runs In The Family (2023), which is genuinely one of the best father-son relationships I have ever seen ANYWHERE, are very much stuck in the present. You can be on good terms with a parent, or sibling, or grandparent, even your extended family, but the previous generations remain silent. The ones who manage to find queer role models within their family do so within someone who is still alive.

And, well, that's all of us, isn't it, doing whatever research into queer history we can however we can (word of mouth on the Internet, mostly), looking for people who might have been like us, but it's still so uncertain, and also, given the nature of the Internet, the names we find are from some random corner of the world that is pretty much never ours. It's Silas in The Spirit Bares Its Teeth latching on to James Barry, because who else is there?

Compound Fracture is all about legacy, and that legacy goes back four generations. It is no wonder that Miles' main Special Interest is history, it's the major theme of the book: How systems of power and oppression get passed down from one generation to the other, how everyone is basically a child caught in the sins of their parents, doomed to repeat it, over and over again. How the ones in power have the possibility to rewrite history, and use it to erase people they don't like, or simply don't care about, and how it takes conscious work and effort to preserve their memory.

And in the middle of it all, a revolutionary, a true role model, not from some random other place, but from Miles' own family. A figure he can look up to, a figure he can admire, a figure whose life and deeds still influence his everyday reality a hundred years later.

A figure he has pretty solid proof to have been a gay trans man.

Silas in The Spirit Bares Its Teeth already had this connection over time with Barry, but that was still quite distant, in that it was completely parasocial. Silas may have seen himself in many ways as Barry's spiritual successor, and he may have even been right, but there was no direct connection between them. If James Barry's consciousness still exists in that world, as a ghost or whatever, then he is pretty guaranteed not to know of Silas' existence. Like, why would he. But with Miles and Compound Fracture, Andrew Joseph White goes this one step further. There IS a direct link between him and Saint Abernathy. Saint Abernathy DOES exist in this book in the form of a ghost, and he DOES care about Miles, and he DOES make it abundantly clear that he is proud of him. Looking further, at the symbolism, it becomes clear that Miles is Saint's heir, and that he is worthy of that role.

I'm pretty sure that every queer person has dreamt of a similar situation regarding members of their own family before. Just knowing that there was someone would be amazing. But to have the founder of your family share your exact identity? To have a sign that they would be proud of you??

Yeah.

As I said, Compound Fracture is a very good book with many strong themes and consequently many reasons why it will appeal to a reader. But this weight of history and legacy are definitely going to be one of the major reasons. I think that we are all secretly STARVED for this kind of queer story.

[mybedismytruelove]

Which character from Compound Fracture is most interesting to you?

Yeah, I'm including Lady as a character here, she very much has her own personality and is very plot-relevant. I can only include a maximum of ten characters in this poll and I'm trying to pick the most plot-relevant ones, so if your fave isn't there, that's why. Sorry especially to all the Paul Miller and Papaw Abernathy enjoyers, I was really close to including both of them, but I think Amber and Noah are ultimately more central to the plot.

The AJW work the next poll will be about will be determined by lottery unless someone requests a specific one. I won't do Dead Air because it's autobiographical.

Okay, so:

Which character from Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White do you find most interesting?

Miles Abernathy

Dallas Foster

Cooper O'Brien

Saint Abernathy

Sheriff Davies

Linda Abernathy/Miles' mom

Jeffery Abernathy/Miles' dad

Noah Davies

Lady

Amber Foster

Other (please tell me, there's far too many interesting characters)

I don't know/I can't decide/I haven't read it/results

Voting ended onMar 5

So which CF do you personally find most interesting? Why? Please tell me, especially if it's not one of those that made it into the poll!

For me, it's really hard to choose. I'm really fascinated by Dallas and Cooper also, but Saint Abernathy wins out. His entire character concept by itself is already so interesting, like, did he see all the generations of his family live and die? How did that change him? Is he the same as when he died or did he grow as a person even in death? Did he change his mind like Miles did or did he always want for Miles to take the community-oriented approach to changing Twist Creek County and just get misunderstood? Does he rest now, or is he still watching over his family? Was he even real or just a symptom of trauma and brain damage?!!! (I'm electing to believe he's a real ghost because that makes the story more interesting to me, but it's ambiguous on purpose I think.) Thinking about his life as a miner, labour activist and presumably stealth trans person in history also never gets old for me. He's also just so cool, I love him.

[phosphorusab]

Andrew Joseph White, write a spin off book about Saint Abernathy and my life is Yours

[fossilized-honey]

I was the first person to check out my library’s copy or Compound Fracture 💪