Green Glass Ghosts

• Green Glass Ghosts is the first YA novel by Rae Spoon, a non-binary musician and writer. Their first book, First Spring Grass Fire (2012), was a novel based on their childhood growing up queer in a Pentacostal family; their second, Gender Failure (2014), an essay collection written with Ivan Coyote, is now in its sixth printing. As a musician, Rae has released 11 acclaimed albums, and is the founder of the music label Coax Records. They were the subject of the feature film My Prairie Home, a National Film Board of Canada documentary that was an official selection at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014 (it is available for free viewing on the NFB website).

• Set in 2000, Green Glass Ghosts is based on Rae’s own experience when as a teenager they ran away from her strict Pentacostal family (and her father’s fledging mental illness) and fled to the big city of Vancouver on the west coast of Canada. There, they are eager to build a new life of their own – they get a job and an apartment - but things don’t entirely work out – they start drinking as a strategy to deal with their stress and memories of the past, which interferes with their attempt to create new relationships and pursue a music career. After a series of crises, they come to understand that if they don’t care about themselves, how can they hope to break free of their past and become a functioning member of the community they desperately need?

• Rae’s first book had young-adult elements in it, but this book was specifically written with a young adult audience in mind. Their voice is honest and hearfelt in the way that teens looking for their own truth are.

• Normally Rae is constantly on the road doing music and speaking gigs, and would have embarked on a North American tour in support of this book and their new music. However, in addition to the effects of the pandemic, Rae is currently undergoing treatment for cancer (they are doing well as of this writing). In lieu of in-person events in 2021, Rae and illustrator Gem Hall are planning to create animated short films in support of the book, and will do online events (depending on their health).

• B&W illustrations throughout. Ages 14 and up.

© 2021 Arsenal Pulp Press (E-raamat): 9781551528397

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E-raamat: 25. mai 2021