Frighten the Horses: A Memoir of Transition

(Paperback, Main)

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'This book is as sharp as razors, but it also pulses with a passionate, desperate, human urgency for truth and liberation. I am deeply grateful to have read it' Elizabeth Gilbert

As the daughter of two well-to-do English parents and the wife of a handsome, successful man, Oliver Radclyffe checked off every box - marriage, children (four), a white-picket fence surrounding a stately home in Connecticut and a golden retriever named Biscuit.

But beneath the shiny veneer, Oliver was desperately trying to stay afloat - his hair was falling out in clumps, he couldn't eat and his mood swings often brought him to tears. And then, on an otherwise unremarkable afternoon, Oliver Radclyffe woke up and realized the life of a trapped housewife was not for him. In fact, Oliver had spent his entire life denying the deepest, truest parts of himself.

Despite the challenges he faced, leaving a marriage and reintroducing himself to his children, Oliver realized there was no way for him to go back to the beautiful lie of his previous life. Not if he wanted to survive.

Frighten the Horses is a trans man's coming of age story, about a housewife who initially comes out as a lesbian and tentatively, at first, steps into the world of queerness. With growing courage and the support of his newfound community, Oliver is finally able to face the question of his gender identity and become the man he is supposed to be.

Reviews

I often think that the entire purpose of a human life is to see if we can somehow get FREE - if we can escape from the rules, expectations and limitations of our families and our cultures in order to live an entirely different existence than the one that was assigned to us at birth. Frighten the Horses is the inspiring true story of one man's extraordinary journey of escape from the wrong marriage, the wrong gender, the wrong life, in order to become who he was always meant to be. This book is as sharp as razors, but it also pulses with a passionate, desperate, human urgency for truth and liberation. I am deeply grateful to have read it, and my hope is that Oliver's story will free many others, as well -- Elizabeth Gilbert
This book is consistently frank, vulnerable, perspicacious and insightful, covering an impressive variety of aspects of the transgender experience in intimate, lyrical language and dry, compassionate humour. The author's analysis of privilege is particularly refreshing, as is his description of transitioning as a parent. A stunning memoir about discovering one's identity late in life. * Kirkus Reviews (starred review) *

Radclyffe's moving devotion to his children ("I didn't so much guide them as encourage them to
guide themselves") lends the resonant coming-out narrative additional weight. Bolstered by poetic prose
and offhanded candor, this story of late-in-life self-acceptance deserves a wide audience

* Publishers Weekly *
It's the voice that makes this memoir stand out. This is a writer who can capture any moment with a dazzling, insightful, at times musical phrase. * Oprah Daily *
There's great power in Radclyffe's vulnerable and generous portrayal of his trans experience...readers will be grateful for it * Booklist *
Wise, generous and fierce, Frighten the Horses is about more than a change of gender; it's about the perilous process of accepting the self, in all its gnarly, glorious complexity. Oliver Radclyffe finds more than manhood on his inspiring journey; what he finds, in the end, is his humanity -- Jennifer Finney Boylan, author of SHE'S NOT THERE and co-author of MAD HONEY
The finest literary telling of the experience of gender transition that I've ever read. It's a terrific, expansive story because the focus of this warm-hearted man always returns to his children. He's simply a wonderful parent, and that's what keeps the reader turning the pages -- Kate Bornstein, author of GENDER OUTLAW
In this exquisite memoir of a trans-man, an upper middle-class Englishwoman gives up her country, her status, her wealth, her marriage, her new lesbian identity (and partner) in order to release and achieve her true male self. Oliver Radclyffe would be a major writer no matter what subject he embraced. That he has explored the mysteries of class, gender, nationality makes Frighten the Horses a heart-felt cant-free book of universal interest -- Edmund White, author of THE HUMBLE LOVER
This easy-to-read, almost jocular memoir is a tribute to how much the trans trajectory has been transformed by the existence of queer bookstores, lesbian and transmasc books, LGBT centres and their accompanying support groups...This hopeful retelling of one life, from the post-transition perspective, makes transness a more viable possibility and documents this historical moment of opportunity and resource -- Sarah Schulman, author of LET THE RECORD SHOW
Brimming with wry wit, radical candour and vulnerability, Frighten the Horses is a fearless exploration of the liberation that comes from unwinding the narratives that we don't choose but so often define us, and the beautiful new futures that exist on the horizon of our imaginations - if we are only willing to risk everything to open our eyes, and really, really look -- Thomas Page McBee, author of AMATEUR
Enjoyable to read and well-written...Radclyffe writes movingly about parenting and the emotional risks of every step he takes toward affirming his maleness...[A]s a testament to midlife transition - especially in a time when so much of the cultural conversation around gender rights focuses on young people - Radclyffe's memoir offers a valuable alternate narrative to the loss and pain that queer history has too often insisted on -- Alex Marzano-Lesnevich * New York Times *

Author Bio

Oliver Radclyffe's work has appeared in the New York Times and Electric Literature, and he recently published Adult Human Male, a monograph on the trans experience under the cisgender gaze. He currently lives on the Connecticut coast, where he is raising his four children.