Rather than hiding behind frustrating metaphors, Crane communicates nuanced, layered messages in a clear, approachable manner. Only on top of it, hanging on as it spins madly.Īdmirably, I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself balances its emotional complexity with a frank, accessible tone. I never feel like I know how to live in the world. Reminiscent of Emily Austin’s Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead, here we have a narrator whose inextricable failures and shortcomings make her painful to look at, but unfalteringly real. Crane does not shy away from the taboo, creating a narrative that is uncomfortably and breathtakingly honest. The first-person narration in this book is fearless, laying all of the ugliness of grief, mental illness, and motherhood out for all to see. Spanning nearly a decade, I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself unflinchingly explores grief, nontraditional motherhood, and the queer struggle for dignity.

When her wife dies in childbirth, Kris must navigate her immense grief while raising a newborn that, bafflingly, bears a second shadow of her own. Kris is one of these “shadesters,” bearing an extra shadow that subjects her to constant public shaming and marginalization. Rather than sending wrongdoers to jail, the Department gives them a second shadow to remind them (and everyone they meet) of the pain they’ve caused. The Department of Balance has revolutionized criminal justice in the United States. ‘Do you want to pay for other people to think about what they’ve done? In nicer prisons than our apartments and condos and houses?’ Author: Marisa Crane | Genre: Speculative Fiction LGBT Fiction | Published

I keep my exoskeletons to myself