Latest news with #Woodworking
Globe and Mail
09-05-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Readers offer their picks for Buying Canadian
Rod Sheridan enjoys an evening lounging in his Toronto home, skimming the Lee Valley Tools 2025 product catalogue – or what his wife jokingly calls 'tool porn.' He's a loyal customer of the family-owned Canadian company that's been selling woodworking and home repair tools, gardening items, and kitchenware for more than 45 years. And he's one of many patriotic shoppers who are advocating for Canadian brands amid the current U.S.-Canada trade war. When The Globe launched its Buy Canadian Guide this winter, it received more than 300 reader recommendations for Canadian-made products, ranging from artisan pyjamas from Bowen Island to iceberg-infused skincare from Newfoundland. 'At a time when we're worrying about trade with unreliable partners and the economic costs of tariffs, Lee Valley actually [makes] products that enable you to [save],' Mr. Sheridan said. The Big Guide to Canadian Shopping The retired electrical technologist and woodworking enthusiast recalls the time he bought a try-square from Lee Valley made of rosewood with a brass insert. 'It was gorgeous,' he said while sitting in his living room, admiring the hardwood floors and the various furniture he's made over the years – all with supplies purchased from Lee Valley. Mr. Sheridan also points to the environmental benefits of buying quality-made Canadian goods. 'We're filling the landfill up with junk,' he said. 'My mom had one kettle during her lifetime [and] it's actually recyclable because it's stainless steel, so it could get smelted down, [not like] the $20 plastic one you buy at Walmart.' And when it comes to food, folks like Mr. Sheridan know how to make do with what they have. 'I probably never had a kiwi or an avocado until I was an adult,' he said. 'Apples survive the winter [so] we had apples since we could grow them.' Accessing quality produce year-round isn't an issue for Jennifer Panek however, who's been frequenting the Ottawa Farmers' Market since the threat of tariffs. 'I'm definitely trying to avoid U.S. products quite deliberately,' she said. 'I'm someone who's gone almost completely local for food.' Ms. Panek supports local producers whenever she can including artisan chocolate makers like Toronto-based ChocoSol whose fresh bean-to-bar products can be found in natural food stores and online, even through monthly subscriptions. Despite living in an urban area, there are items that are hard to source for Ms. Panek. 'Medium-grain rice seems to be all imported from the U.S. even at local Asian grocery stores,' she said. Vancouver resident Angela Tai has several suggestions for those looking for Asian-Canadian products. One of her beloved brands is Sunrise Soya Foods, a family-owned and operated business from Vancouver that makes a wide range of soy products, including desserts and beverages. With a goal 'to have tofu in every fridge in Canada,' its products are now readily available at major grocery stores. Opinion: Forget 'Buy Canadian.' 'Travel Canadian' is actually making a difference Businesses too are celebrating the 'Buy Canadian' movement and seeing an uptick in patriotic customers. Take for example, Canadian burger chain, A&W, with some of their 1,050 franchisees across the country changing their logo to 'Eh & W.' 'We're hearing from our guests that they're coming to A&W because we are a Canadian business and they want to support us,' the company said in an e-mail statement. The continuing economic uncertainty has amplified efforts by businesses to champion Canadian products. For instance, grocery retailer Save-On-Foods has displayed 'Product of Canada' and 'Made in Canada' signs on store shelves and added a 'Shop Canadian' page on their online platform. (Other grocery chains are using similar approaches.) The company which operates 187 Save-On-Foods locations across Western Canada, sources products from more than 2,000 local suppliers, and has seen a noticeable shift in customers choosing Canadian options first, according to Ben Harrack, senior vice-president for owner Pattison Food Group. 'We have definitely seen an increase in demand for Canadian products within our stores,' he said. Despite the proliferation of Buy Canadian branding, some consumers still struggle to find domestic products in certain categories. Cathy Farr of Guelph, Ont., has been disappointed to find out that most everyday items for her pets are imported from the U.S. 'Has this country fallen so far down that we have to import kitty litter? I'm pretty sure I could go and dig some sand out of the backyard,' she said. Writing letters to retailers and making the extra effort to source Canadian goods has become a hobby for the 75-year-old. She's managed to find one Canadian brand, Green Beaver that makes all-natural personal care products. Her favourites are their mint hand soap, citrus deodorant, and cinnamon toothpaste. Ms. Farr sees buying Canadian as a way of contributing to her community that she foresees being hit hard by auto tariffs. 'I wish I had the means to buy a steel plant, but the way I look at it is, if enough Canadians buy enough Canadian-made products, whether it's a tube of toothpaste or hand soap, then the owner of that company can maybe buy a new truck,' she said. For Mr. Sheridan, the tariff war is about consciously stopping purchases from U.S. companies too. '[Tariffs] are not things you take lightly,' he said. 'Once somebody shows you what they're like, believe them.'
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How the Closet Really Works
Abigail Hawkes earnestly dreams of disappearing. The teenage protagonist of Emily St. James's new novel, Woodworking, can't wait for the day when she can slip out of Mitchell, South Dakota, and make it to a big city like Chicago; once there, she imagines, she'll shed her past and start over, and no one will know she's transgender. Abigail has seen this vanishing act referred to as 'woodworking' on the internet—picking up stakes, passing for cis, and fading into the woodwork. For now, Abigail is a pariah in her town and her school, facing discrimination both inane (locker vandalism, unsympathetic teachers) and terrifying (physical threats, a targeted bathroom ban). She's been kicked out of her family home and is living with her sister. It was 'a whole thing,' she says in a moment of profound understatement—a situation 'so ridiculous' that she laughed in the face of her violent father. Yet beneath her adolescent bravado, she's so unhappy that she's willing to jettison her entire life thus far to get away from prejudice. The anonymous woman who brought up woodworking online was warning readers like Abigail against it: 'It destroys you. You can't pretend you're not who you are.' Abigail isn't moved by this argument. She is open about being trans only because she's been forced to be; she sees her public transition simply as a necessary first step toward the life she wants. But, as she quickly learns, no one gets to just come out once and be done with the whole mess. Many LGBTQ people face a lifetime of moments that require them to weigh honesty against safety—and transgender Americans are especially vulnerable in 2025, under an administration that has declared they don't exist and demanded their disappearance from the military, schools, bathrooms, and public life writ large. Woodworking is set in the fall of 2016, just before Donald Trump's first presidential victory, but its concerns are extremely of the moment. Yet the novel doesn't feel prescriptive, because St. James explores momentous personal decisions dramatically rather than dogmatically, making clear through a variety of perspectives that there are no obvious choices—only trade-offs. Queer life is often described with the binary metaphor of the closet: You're in or you're out, your identity hidden or declared. But that's insufficient for many people, including Abigail. She's already sacrificed security, rejecting her parents' offer to take her back in as long as she pretends to be their son again. She won't renounce her gender—but she's all right with the idea of keeping her history secret. In Woodworking, St. James demolishes the simplistic closet concept, revealing lives that are marked by many transitions, and that pass through any number of gradations within the continuum of showing up, hiding, slipping under the radar, or openly demanding respect. Abigail will soon learn she's not the only trans woman in Mitchell—and that the people around her will each decide on a different path. The first person we meet is not Abigail but an English teacher who supervises Abigail's time in detention (for calling her classmates 'fascist cunts'). Everyone knows this teacher as the jovial, mustached Mr. Skyberg, whose first name appears in the novel only as a blank gray box. But the teacher quickly reveals something to the student that no one else on Earth knows: Skyberg is trans, too, and her chosen name is Erica. Erica is struggling: She's divorced, in large part because she emotionally retreated from her ex-wife, Constance. Her only maybe-friend is her community-theater buddy Brooke Daniels, a member of Mitchell's most powerful conservative Christian family. Erica believes it's too late to transition and live as a woman, and definitely too late to woodwork. From her moderately safe hiding place, she feels as though she sees the world through a thick film (an effect St. James amplifies by narrating Erica's chapters in the third person and Abigail's in the first). Erica's old name sounds 'enveloped in fog' whenever someone says it aloud to her. [Adam Serwer: The attack on trans rights won't end there] And yet she shares herself with Abigail because the thrill of being seen is intoxicating. Abigail claims to be put off by Erica's sudden confession, but she is also genuinely glad to no longer be alone. The two form a strange, cross-generational friendship. The teacher has more life experience, but Abigail becomes, at 17, her mentor and mother figure, bringing Erica to a trans support group and complimenting the nail polish she's been brave enough to wear in public. They discuss Erica's work on a local production of Our Town that stars Constance, which is drawing the exes together. They talk about Abigail's romance with Caleb Daniels, Brooke's son, who initially hides their relationship out of shame and fear. But by the middle of the novel, an unresolvable tension arises between Abigail and Erica. The former feels unsupported by her friend, left to weather transphobia on her own when someone else could be standing beside her. And Erica deeply envies Abigail's open future, when her own feels so foreclosed. She is terrified that someone's going to figure out her secret, and maintaining it requires more than silence: She knows that insufficiently masculine behavior courts rumors and harassment, and she has to actively pretend to be a different person to protect her relationships, her job, and her safety. Eventually, she panics, overwhelmed by the hazards ahead of her. 'She had given it a try, and it had gone poorly, and now she was going to give up,' Erica thinks, looking at herself in the mirror. 'There was power in knowing the obvious and choosing to ignore it.' She slams the door of self-knowledge behind her, losing Abigail's friendship as she does. St. James makes both choices seem reasonable, but irreconcilable—only to break the stalemate with a late revelation. Another woman in their town is also trans, but she woodworked years ago, and made decisions very different from either of theirs. She's wedged so deeply into her conservative milieu that she now supports anti-trans candidates and causes. She has traded authenticity for stability, given up her old family for a new one, and made an uneasy peace with her own hypocrisy. Where another novel might conclude with either her downfall or her redemption, Woodworking chooses neither. Instead, the woman is left to live with the life she's made, just as she has every day for decades. Despite the precariousness of coming out, only one path really feels viable for the two main characters. Abigail realizes she can't leave other trans women behind: 'We're all we've got,' she recognizes. 'We have to take care of each other.' And Erica decides she must find a way to live, not just survive. One crucial scene midway through the story illustrates the pressure that's been building up inside her and the benefit of letting it out. After deciding to deny her transness (which in turn alienates Abigail), Erica is miserable and exhausted. Remembering other people in her life who were punished for stepping outside gendered boxes, she weeps at the ways she's contorted herself in order to stay locked inside her own. Then she sees Constance, and in a desperate flash, the words tumble out of her. [Read: How gay culture helped everyone come out of the closet] Why only then, years after they first met, after college, after their marriage and divorce, does Erica share her secret? Because she is done running, St. James suggests; because she wants to be seen the way Abigail is seen, at least by the person who's come closest to knowing her. After that moment, Erica isn't 'out'—she'll still need to tell her boss, her family, and her neighbors, or else let the rumor mill do its work. She'll want to change her hair, her clothes, her grooming; she'll have to deal with the guesses and questions of strangers; people will likely misgender her or misunderstand her, and they have the potential to do much worse. But during this quick, unrehearsed grasp at connection, readers see clearly why the rewards of that recognition are far higher than its cost. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
24-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Atlantic
How the Closet Really Works
Abigail Hawkes earnestly dreams of disappearing. The teenage protagonist of Emily St. James's new novel, Woodworking, can't wait for the day when she can slip out of Mitchell, South Dakota, and make it to a big city like Chicago; once there, she imagines, she'll shed her past and start over, and no one will know she's transgender. Abigail has seen this vanishing act referred to as 'woodworking' on the internet—picking up stakes, passing for cis, and fading into the woodwork. For now, Abigail is a pariah in her town and her school, facing discrimination both inane (locker vandalism, unsympathetic teachers) and terrifying (physical threats, a targeted bathroom ban). She's been kicked out of her family home and is living with her sister. It was 'a whole thing,' she says in a moment of profound understatement—a situation 'so ridiculous' that she laughed in the face of her violent father. Yet beneath her adolescent bravado, she's so unhappy that she's willing to jettison her entire life thus far to get away from prejudice. The anonymous woman who brought up woodworking online was warning readers like Abigail against it: 'It destroys you. You can't pretend you're not who you are.' Abigail isn't moved by this argument. She is open about being trans only because she's been forced to be; she sees her public transition simply as a necessary first step toward the life she wants. But, as she quickly learns, no one gets to just come out once and be done with the whole mess. Many LGBTQ people face a lifetime of moments that require them to weigh honesty against safety—and transgender Americans are especially vulnerable in 2025, under an administration that has declared they don't exist and demanded their disappearance from the military, schools, bathrooms, and public life writ large. Woodworking is set in the fall of 2016, just before Donald Trump's first presidential victory, but its concerns are extremely of the moment. Yet the novel doesn't feel prescriptive, because St. James explores momentous personal decisions dramatically rather than dogmatically, making clear through a variety of perspectives that there are no obvious choices—only trade-offs. Queer life is often described with the binary metaphor of the closet: You're in or you're out, your identity hidden or declared. But that's insufficient for many people, including Abigail. She's already sacrificed security, rejecting her parents' offer to take her back in as long as she pretends to be their son again. She won't renounce her gender—but she's all right with the idea of keeping her history secret. In Woodworking, St. James demolishes the simplistic closet concept, revealing lives that are marked by many transitions, and that pass through any number of gradations within the continuum of showing up, hiding, slipping under the radar, or openly demanding respect. Abigail will soon learn she's not the only trans woman in Mitchell—and that the people around her will each decide on a different path. The first person we meet is not Abigail but an English teacher who supervises Abigail's time in detention (for calling her classmates 'fascist cunts'). Everyone knows this teacher as the jovial, mustached Mr. Skyberg, whose first name appears in the novel only as a blank gray box. But the teacher quickly reveals something to the student that no one else on Earth knows: Skyberg is trans, too, and her chosen name is Erica. Erica is struggling: She's divorced, in large part because she emotionally retreated from her ex-wife, Constance. Her only maybe-friend is her community-theater buddy Brooke Daniels, a member of Mitchell's most powerful conservative Christian family. Erica believes it's too late to transition and live as a woman, and definitely too late to woodwork. From her moderately safe hiding place, she feels as though she sees the world through a thick film (an effect St. James amplifies by narrating Erica's chapters in the third person and Abigail's in the first). Erica's old name sounds 'enveloped in fog' whenever someone says it aloud to her. Adam Serwer: The attack on trans rights won't end there And yet she shares herself with Abigail because the thrill of being seen is intoxicating. Abigail claims to be put off by Erica's sudden confession, but she is also genuinely glad to no longer be alone. The two form a strange, cross-generational friendship. The teacher has more life experience, but Abigail becomes, at 17, her mentor and mother figure, bringing Erica to a trans support group and complimenting the nail polish she's been brave enough to wear in public. They discuss Erica's work on a local production of Our Town that stars Constance, which is drawing the exes together. They talk about Abigail's romance with Caleb Daniels, Brooke's son, who initially hides their relationship out of shame and fear. But by the middle of the novel, an unresolvable tension arises between Abigail and Erica. The former feels unsupported by her friend, left to weather transphobia on her own when someone else could be standing beside her. And Erica deeply envies Abigail's open future, when her own feels so foreclosed. She is terrified that someone's going to figure out her secret, and maintaining it requires more than silence: She knows that insufficiently masculine behavior courts rumors and harassment, and she has to actively pretend to be a different person to protect her relationships, her job, and her safety. Eventually, she panics, overwhelmed by the hazards ahead of her. 'She had given it a try, and it had gone poorly, and now she was going to give up,' Erica thinks, looking at herself in the mirror. 'There was power in knowing the obvious and choosing to ignore it.' She slams the door of self-knowledge behind her, losing Abigail's friendship as she does. St. James makes both choices seem reasonable, but irreconcilable—only to break the stalemate with a late revelation. Another woman in their town is also trans, but she woodworked years ago, and made decisions very different from either of theirs. She's wedged so deeply into her conservative milieu that she now supports anti-trans candidates and causes. She has traded authenticity for stability, given up her old family for a new one, and made an uneasy peace with her own hypocrisy. Where another novel might conclude with either her downfall or her redemption, Woodworking chooses neither. Instead, the woman is left to live with the life she's made, just as she has every day for decades. Despite the precariousness of coming out, only one path really feels viable for the two main characters. Abigail realizes she can't leave other trans women behind: 'We're all we've got,' she recognizes. 'We have to take care of each other.' And Erica decides she must find a way to live, not just survive. One crucial scene midway through the story illustrates the pressure that's been building up inside her and the benefit of letting it out. After deciding to deny her transness (which in turn alienates Abigail), Erica is miserable and exhausted. Remembering other people in her life who were punished for stepping outside gendered boxes, she weeps at the ways she's contorted herself in order to stay locked inside her own. Then she sees Constance, and in a desperate flash, the words tumble out of her. Why only then, years after they first met, after college, after their marriage and divorce, does Erica share her secret? Because she is done running, St. James suggests; because she wants to be seen the way Abigail is seen, at least by the person who's come closest to knowing her. After that moment, Erica isn't 'out'—she'll still need to tell her boss, her family, and her neighbors, or else let the rumor mill do its work. She'll want to change her hair, her clothes, her grooming; she'll have to deal with the guesses and questions of strangers; people will likely misgender her or misunderstand her, and they have the potential to do much worse. But during this quick, unrehearsed grasp at connection, readers see clearly why the rewards of that recognition are far higher than its cost.
USA Today
21-03-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Trans Rights Readathon starts: 11 books to read, from romance to nonfiction
Trans Rights Readathon starts: 11 books to read, from romance to nonfiction Every day is one you can support and read trans authors, but readers have a special excuse to pick up new books this week. It's the third annual Trans Rights Readathon, a yearly call to action and reading challenge that ends on Trans Day of Visibility. This year, the challenge goes from March 21-31. The creators recommend booklovers participate by reading and reviewing works by trans, nonbinary, 2Spirit and gender nonconforming authors, as well as supporting the community by donating to local or national organizations. In 2023, the Trans Rights Readathon raised over $234,000 for trans-supporting organizations and recorded over 2,600 participants. 11 books to read for the Trans Rights Readathon If you're looking to add some titles to your TBR for this year's Trans Rights Readathon, we have suggestions for books written by trans and nonbinary authors. They range from romance to sci-fi, literary fiction to fantasy. Some are recent releases and others are oldies-but-goodies. 'Stag Dance' by Torrey Peters 'Stag Dance' is a collection of one novel and three stories from the bestselling author of 'Detransition, Baby.' In the titular novel, restless lumberjacks plan a dance under the condition that some of them will attend as women. In 'an astonishing vision of gender and transition,' the publisher writes, the axmen are caught up in a strange rivalry, jealousy and obsession. The other short stories feature a gender apocalypse, a secret romance between Quaker boarding school roommates and a party weekend on the Las Vegas strip that turns dark. 'Woodworking' by Emily St. James Released earlier this month, 'Woodworking' is about a 35-year-old recently divorced teacher who comes out as trans in small-town South Dakota. As she grapples with her transition, she finds an unlikely friend in 17-year-old Abigail, the only trans girl at Mitchell High School. Abigail reluctantly agrees to help Erica through her transition, remembering the loneliness she experienced when she was going through the same. 'Before We Were Trans' by Kit Heyam 'Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender' is the kind of nonfiction read that's so narrative it feels like fiction. Stories of gender nonconforming fashion, wartime stage performance and the untold identities of famous historical people portray the complexity of gender across time and throughout the world, pushing back against the notion that people fit neatly into the categories of male or female. 'Model Home' by Rivers Solomon 'Model Home' is billed as a 'new kind of haunted-house novel' interrogating the legacy of segregation and racism in suburban America. The story follows the three Maxwell siblings who grew up as the only Black family in a gated Dallas neighborhood, also tormented by strange and unexplainable demonic happenings in their house. When their parents' death forces the now-adult siblings to return, they begin to uncover the supernatural forces at play. 'Paper Doll' by Dylan Mulvaney The actress and content creator's debut memoir gives readers a more intimate glimpse behind her 'Days of Girlhood' social media series and transition. Mulvaney unpacks the transphobia, backlash, acceptance and, ultimately, joy in this reflection of her pre- and post-transition life. 'A Gentleman's Gentleman' by TJ Alexander Wish 'Bridgerton' was more queer? This newly released trans Regency-era romance is for you. 'A Gentleman's Gentleman' follows the eccentric recluse Lord Christopher Eden who receives abrupt word that, to keep his family fortune, he must take a wife by the end of the courting season. First on the list of his many problems? He isn't attracted to women. Second? He has to move to London. And then he meets James Harding, the distractingly handsome new valet, whose presence threatens to upend it all. 'Bellies' by Nicola Dinan 'Bellies' follows a young couple, Tom and Ming, as they move in and out of each other's lives in early adulthood. Tom has recently come out as gay and is quickly drawn to Ming, a magnetic playwright. But shortly after they move in together, Ming announces her intention to transition. It changes the dynamics of both their relationship and their broader friendship circle. Together and apart, Ming and Tom must navigate new questions around identity, gender, relationships, intimacy and heartbreak. 'Pet' by Akwaeke Emezi From the award-winning author of 'You Make a Fool of Death with Your Beauty,' Emezi's genre-expansive debut follows two best friends who grow up in a city that touts the fact that there are no monsters anymore. But when they meet Pet, a horned, clawed, multicolored creature, the friends must reckon with what they've been taught and how to protect each other in a society in denial. 'The Prospects' by KT Hoffman In this baseball romance, Gene is proud of the quiet, underdog career he's built as the first openly trans professional baseball player. But when his former teammate and current rival Luis is traded to the Beavers, it dampens the once-perfect outlook he had. They can't put their differences aside – on or off the field. After a curveball twist, the pair finds themselves spending more and more time together, realizing the tension between them might be something more than loathing. 'Light from Uncommon Stars' by Ryka Aoki Called 'dark but ultimately hopeful' by Publishers Weekly, this speculative story starts with a deal with the devil – Shizuka Satomi has promised to sell the souls of seven violin prodigies before she can escape damnation. And she's found her final candidate in the form of a talented young transgender runaway. But Shizuka's plans to lift the curse come to a screeching halt when she becomes infatuated with an interstellar refugee and retired starship captain that catches her attention. 'Felix Ever After' by Kacen Callender This YA romance novel centers on Felix Love who, despite the last name, has never been in love. He wonders if happily-ever-afters apply to him as he grapples with his identity as a Black, queer, transgender teen, all while an anonymous student begins sending him threatening and transphobic messages. But when a revenge plan goes awry, Felix finds himself in something of a love triangle that catapults him on a journey of self-discovery. Looking for your next great read? USA TODAY has you covered. Taste is subjective, and USA TODAY Books has plenty of genres to recommend. Check out the 15 new releases we're most excited about in 2025. Is dystopian your thing? Check out these books that are similar to 'The Hunger Games' and '1984.' Or if you want something with lower stakes and loveable characters, see if a "cozy mystery" or "cozy fantasy" book is for you. If you want the most popular titles, check out USA TODAY's Best-selling Booklist. Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you're reading at cmulroy@
Washington Post
04-03-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
‘Woodworking' is a funny, convincing takedown of American prejudice
When my fiancée, Denise, declared themself gender nonbinary and started using they/them pronouns, I didn't get it. In fact, I fought it. I used grammar, biology, any stick I could grab to argue that humans come in only two genders — thereby proving two disturbing revelations of the 2024 election. One, the power of transphobia. It worked for Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans, who spent $215 million on anti-trans ads ahead of the election. Two, despite our nation's name (the 'United' States) and founding principle ('All people are created equal'), Americans, including me, are prone to disparaging people who are different from us. Not because they'll do us harm. Just because they're different. My relationship with Denise is not a deal I'm willing to break, so I started reading up. I learned that gender-nonconforming people have existed almost always, almost everywhere. Many cultures, including some Native American tribes, revere rather than bully them. My knowledge expanded as I studied; my understanding, not so much. Then I read 'Woodworking' by critic and journalist Emily St. James. I felt my fiancée's heartache in the novel's profoundly human trans protagonists. And I heard my own prejudice in their antagonists' hurtful words. Immersed in their story, I began to grok gender dysphoria from the inside, where empathy lives. The elder of the novel's male-to-female trans protagonists is known as Mr. Skyberg, a divorced high school teacher in small town Mitchell, South Dakota. 'Erica,' as she thinks of herself, is tortured by her own 'woodworking,' disappearing into the woodwork so no one knows she's trans; simultaneously wanting to come out and fearing it, ricocheting hourly between the anguish of her gender dysphoria and the consequences of resolving it. In a lunchroom conversation with fellow teacher Hank, 'Erica realized she had been laughing a second too long, at something that wasn't even funny at all. … She had the uneasy feeling lately that she was watching herself on a thirty-second delay.' When Hank, misreading Erica's awkwardness, offers to pray with Erica about her recent divorce from Constance, Erica 'didn't even hear his prayer. She looked, instead, at her nails and wondered what they might look like painted pink.' Erica's unlikely gender guru is her 17-year-old student, Abigail, the only trans girl in town. Abigail alone senses Erica lurking inside Mr. Skyberg and is instantly invested in ushering Erica out. 'Imagine a teacher at our school treating me like anything other than a mess somebody else was supposed to clean up,' Abigail thinks. Toward that end, Abigail sets about solving Erica's nail polish problem. While Erica hides in her car, Abigail runs into Walmart, returning with the illicit goods. ''Get in the car,' Erica said, sure the entire world had turned its eyes toward the teenager and her teacher, who still had a mustache … leaning across the center console and attempting to drag the girl inside. Abigail sighed and withdrew a tiny bottle of nail polish from her jacket pocket.' Abigail convinces her teacher to take her pink fingernails, and her female self, to school. 'Erica was terrified. She tucked her nails up into the meat of her hand, where they couldn't be seen.' Too late. A bro teacher in a crowd of bro teachers declares, 'I see why things didn't work out with Connie! Look at this guy's nails!' At home, Erica faces the firing squad in the mirror, overtaken by the dysphoric self-loathing many readers, trans and not, will recognize. Her rib cage is too large. The hair on her chest is disgusting, hiding 'her ridiculous, tiny pink nipples.' Her arms are flabby. 'These were not fingers that deserved nail polish. They looked so stupid with it on.' 'Why should I get to transition?' Erica moans to Abigail. 'Lots of people want things they can't have, Abigail. You're lucky. You're young. You didn't have a life to screw up.' Even after an annoyed Abigail reminds Erica — again — that she lives with her sister because her parents disowned her, Erica is adamant. 'I don't know how to be Erica. I know how to be Mr. Skyberg. And that's who I'm going to be.' Unsurprising spoiler alert: That's who Mr. Skyberg spends the rest of the novel trying, and failing, to be. Writing a funny book is hard. Writing a convincing takedown of one of America's most popular prejudices is harder still. Writing a funny novel in which complex, imperfect characters make a compelling case for one of our culture's most maligned groups — that takes smarts and heart. Fortunately for her readers, St. John is in full possession of both. People are funny, 'Woodworking' says, even when their pain is anything but. People are resilient, even when prejudice forces them to speak dueling languages, wrestle with dueling personae, and live dueling lives, sending the same student to detention one day and to Walmart for pink nail polish the next. People are people, 'Woodworking' says, regardless of the gender we're assigned at birth, or the gender we claim as our own. The book's message is a simple one, often attributed to a Dutch proverb cited in 1622 and later adopted by the 1960s counterculture that made me the open-minded person I usually am, and by the Alcoholics Anonymous program that (mostly) keeps me that way. The phrase is 'Live and let live.' 'Woodworking' convinced me to try it on my fiancée. Meredith Maran is a journalist, a critic and the author of 'The New Old Me: My Late-Life Reinvention,' among other books. By Emily St. James Zando - Crooked Media. 368 pp. $28
