Handsome: Stories of an Awkward Girl Boy Human

by Holly Lorka

Overview

As a horny little kid, Holly Lorka had no idea why God had put her in the wrong body and made her want to kiss girls. She had questions: Was she a monster? Would she ever be able to grow sideburns? And most importantly, where was her penis?

The problem was, it was the 1970s, so there were no answers yet.

Here, Lorka tells the story—by turns hilarious and poignant—of her romp through the first fifty years of her life searching for sex, love, acceptance, and answers to her questions. With a sharp wit, endearing innocence, and indelible sense of optimism, she struggles through the awkward years (spoiler: that’s all of them) and discovers that what she thought were mistakes are actually powerful tools to launch her into a magical—and ridiculous—life.

Oh, and she discovers that she can buy a penis at the store, too.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631527838
Publisher:	She Writes Press
Publication date:	10/20/2020
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Holly Lorka is a writer, storyteller, and retired standup comedian whose work has been included in several anthologies and podcasts, including Dan Savage’s Hot Mic. Her stories of gender, sex, and shame have earned her a following in Austin, Texas, where she lives and works as an ICU nurse and super sharp wedding officiant. Handsome is her first book, and she’s a little nervous about her dad reading it. She currently resides in Austin, TX.

Editorial Reviews

2021 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Winner Memoirs (Overcoming Adversity/Tragedy)

“Lorka’s ability to balance life’s harshness alongside its ridiculousness and to poke fun at herself make for a read that’s never disingenuous or boring. . . . A delightful remembrance that’s brimming with honesty and wit.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

From the Publisher

★ 2020-07-31
A collection of humorous and heartfelt stories about gender, sex, childhood, shame, and self-acceptance.

“When I was four years old,” Lorka states on the first page of her debut, “my friend Mikey told me that when he went downhill fast, like in a car, it made his pee-pee feel funny.” Thus begins her collection of autobiographical essays that focus on nearly five decades of awkwardness, sexual awakenings, breakups, gender dysphoria, upended career expectations, and nighttime visitations by the ghost of singer George Michael. Lorka’s charming, irreverent voice leaps off every page as she casually unspools the details of her life, touching on major events only briefly—such as when she dumped her male fiance and embraced her attraction to women, or her difficult relationship with her late mother—only to saunter back to them later with winking familiarity. Lorka’s ability to balance life’s harshness alongside its ridiculousness and to poke fun at herself make for a read that’s never disingenuous or boring. An account of a pit bull attack is, at different points, harrowing and hilarious, and a story of a high school crush on a coach walks a tightrope between longing and obsession. Various digressions about her career as an intensive care nurse manage to, by turns, bemoan the sexualization of nursing and recount the tragic death of a new mother. Most arresting, though, are Lorka’s candid discussions of her lifelong struggles with her body and sexuality as a gender-nonconforming lesbian. With self-deprecating humor, the author lays out her internalized shame, her discomfort, and her hunger to be someone different; only after having thoroughly entrenched the reader in this mindset does Lorka then guide them through an account of her agonizing but glorious process of learning to love herself. The results are cathartic, joyful, encouraging, and often very funny.

A delightful remembrance that’s brimming with honesty and wit.

Kirkus Reviews