One in Every Crowd

by Ivan Coyote

Overview

Ivan E. Coyote's wry, honest stories about gender and identity have captivated audiences everywhere. Ivan's eighth book is her first for LGBT youth, written for anyone who has ever felt different or alone in their struggles to be true to themselves. Included are stories about Ivan's tomboy youth and her adult life, where she experiences cruelty and kindness in unexpected places.

Funny, inspiring, and full of heart, One in Every Crowd is about embracing and celebrating difference and feeling comfortable in one's own skin.

Ivan E. Coyote was also featured in the anti-bullying anthology It Gets Better.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781551524597
Publisher:	Arsenal Pulp Press, Limited
Publication date:	09/04/2012
Pages:	238
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Ivan E. Coyote: Ivan E. Coyote is the author of five previous story collections, the most recent of which is Missed Her. Ivan is also the co-editor (with Zena Sharman) of the anthology Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme. One of her stories appears in the anthology It Gets Better, edited by Dan Savage and Terry Miller. Originally from the Yukon, she now lives in Vancouver.

Editorial Reviews

In a funny and empathetic collection of more than 40 stories, some of which were published in Coyote’s earlier books, the author looks back on her childhood in Canada’s Yukon territory in the 1970s (when she was often mistaken for a boy), as well as more recent interactions (which can still involve being mistaken for a man). Adults are perhaps more likely to respond to the retrospective nature of these autobiographical essays, but teenagers confronting their sexuality, or who have otherwise felt like outsiders, will feel as though they’ve gained an ally in Coyote. The collection occasionally doubles back on itself—Coyote offers advice to her younger self more than once, certain family stories are repeated—yet even this is in keeping with the easygoing storyteller’s tone; reading these stories is like sitting in the audience at one of Coyote’s spoken-word performances. These tales of compassionate relatives (“Uncle Rob has never let the fact that I was declared female at birth get in the way of our male bonding”), finding love, and even the insecurities that stretch into adulthood should provide reassurance that there is indeed life after high school. Ages 14–up. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Sophisticated, earnest, plainspoken and intimate, this collection will speak to LGBTQ youth as well as straight youth, teens and adults. —Kirkus Reviews

A funny and empathetic collection of more than forty stories ... Teenagers confronting their sexuality, or who have otehrwise felt like outsiders, will feel as though they've gained an ally in Coyote ... These tales of compassionate relatives, finding love, and even the insecurities that stretch into adulthood should provide reassurance that there is indeed life after high school. —Publishers Weekly

There are so many vital stories in here; stories about how scary high schools still are even when you’re an adult; stories about the different ways in which we find love; stories about boys who likes to wear dresses; stories about the deep conundrum of what bathroom to walk into. Every story is full of honesty, joy, warmth, pain, anger, and hope. Every story is markedly real. I felt like I knew every character in every story, or at least wanted to; I longed to jump into Coyote’s world and take trips to the Yukon and have long talks and hearty laughs over coffee or alcohol. To tell stories. Scratch that; this wasn’t something I longed for, but something that I felt would be completely natural, something that was pretty much as good as real. And any book, any story, that makes you feel that level of comfort, that is something special. Those are the books you never throw away. And I’ll never throw One In Every Crowd away — except if I find a youth who needs it. Then I’ll gladly hand it over, and buy a few additional copies for their friends. —AfterEllen.com

Ivan E. Coyote knows the hearts of teenagers. One in Every Crowd is an homage to the outsider: to the young boy who steals his mother’s lipstick, to the girl who slip-slides in and out of gender identifications, to the ones who can’t put themselves in boxes. To the ones who cannot abide by the binary. It is a love-touched and memory-soaked ballad to queer youth ... One in Every Crowd is a book that belongs in the hands of queer youth and in the hands of their oppressors. It’s a heartfelt and rich look at what it’s like to be else, to be outside, to toe the lines and then step over them. It can teach, it can support. It’s a book that will change readers, and leave them knowing that being changed by it is a privilege. —Lambda Literary

Queer storyteller Ivan E. Coyote has created a diverse and charming array of vignettes for anyone who has ever fought to find who they really are. —The Advocate

The stories in this collection are stunning in every way: unaffected, compassionate, inspirational, and, as if that wasn’t enough, achingly funny ... Great writing has the power to enrich lives; not all writing has the power to save them. —Quill and Quire (STARRED REVIEW)

From the Publisher

Celebrated Canadian storyteller Coyote here compiles short, mostly autobiographical vignettes about childhood, family and queerness. Unlike many compilations aimed at youth, this one doesn't limit itself to stories about being a teenager. Readers are just as likely to hear about the adult Coyote's worries about performing in a high school or the moment when she learns her father has stopped drinking as about the author's younger self rolling down hills in tires or playing kissing games. Most stories are neither explicit nor didactic about queerness or gender; within stories about childhood or travel, incidents of the author being forced into dresses or nearly chased out of bathrooms speak for themselves. Details from one piece are sometimes echoed in another. In one section, Coyote tells several stories about a friend's gentle, feminine child named Francis; later, she talks about deciding whether to tell that story to an audience of "beefy...biker-looking types," explaining, "The Francis story was a tale about a little boy who liked to wear dresses." Rather than seeming tedious, however, this repetition builds a sense of familiarity as readers come to know about and recognize details of the storyteller's life. Sophisticated, earnest, plainspoken and intimate, this collection will speak to LGBTQ youth as well as straight youth, teens and adults. (Memoir. 14 & up)

Kirkus Reviews