{"id":5545,"date":"2012-10-16T09:24:38","date_gmt":"2012-10-16T15:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=5545"},"modified":"2012-10-16T09:24:38","modified_gmt":"2012-10-16T15:24:38","slug":"rae-spoon-first-prairie-grass-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2012\/10\/16\/rae-spoon-first-prairie-grass-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Rae Spoon \u2013 First Prairie Grass Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-5546\" href=\"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/2012\/10\/16\/rae-spoon-%e2%80%93-first-prairie-grass-fire\/raespoon\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5546\" title=\"raespoon\" src=\"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/raespoon.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>First Prairie Grass Fire<\/em> provides  an honest look at growing up in Calgary and experiencing Hell from all  sides. Difference is publicly ridiculed and at home considered sinful,  there is no safe place but in song.<!--more--> Rae Spoon\u2019s first work of fiction is  more than just another book about being lesbian and trans in a  heteronormative culture where the concept of transphobia is not even on  the radar. Layers of childhood build up throughout the manuscript via  short yet powerful stories. Without being specific to their own life,  Spoon tries to write about what they know best. The result is an Earth  shaking collision of evangelical Christianity, mental illness, abuse, a  desire to belong, a fear of being recognized as not being like the  others girls, and that dream to play music. Spoon\u2019s plain language and  subtle style allows every word to count making the emotion driving  through these pages palpable. \u00a0Although it may be short, and the  directness of the writing leaves a lot to the imagination, <em>First Prairie Grass Fire<\/em> creates a collage from bits of a childhood weaving them together and  leaving a beautiful and powerful tapestry of pain, alienation, and  triumph. When reaching the end of the book, the raw power of Spoon\u2019s  story can be fully understood with the context of their life. Rae  Spoon will be doing a book reading at McNally Robinson, 1120 Grant  Ave., on October 20th. (Arsenal Pulp Press, <a href=\"http:\/\/arsenalpulp.com\" target=\"_blank\">arsenalpulp.com<\/a>) <strong>Jesse Blackman<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First Prairie Grass Fire provides an honest look at growing up in Calgary and experiencing Hell from all sides. Difference is publicly ridiculed and at home considered sinful, there is no safe place but in song.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[129,776,1038],"class_list":["post-5545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-books","tag-rae-spoon","tag-turn-the-page"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5545\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}