Some of them say that we’re sick, we’re crazy.
And some of them think that we are the most
gorgeous, special things on Earth.
‘Venus Xtravaganza – Paris is Burning
In Terry Dactyl the eponymous protagonist tells her life story beginning with her childhood in the 80s, then moving through the AIDS crisis, to the New York art world, the trans/queer club scene of the 90s, then to Seattle during the COVID lockdowns and the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore’s flaneuse style merges contemplation and haphazardry into what feels like a memoir more than a piece of fiction; the account of a life that puts the themes of addiction, control, justice, and community at its center. Terry’s unwavering sense of purpose animates the entire book and leads her down many different paths: the shock-culture of club-kid hedonism, art-world activism, and pavement pounding protest marches. Terry’s multiple, overlapping narratives often jump around in time and place, but keep a constant moral framework. Because there are clear cuts between different stories and anecdotes, the book can also read a bit like a collection of queer morality tales. This would feel preachy if not for Terry’s voice, which has a tumultuous immediacy that pulls you into each scene—sometimes gladly, sometimes kicking and screaming.
The first section of the book swept me up when Terry, fresh to New York City, meets Sid and a group of trans club kids who take her to Christopher Street Pier.
And I’ll be honest here and say that I hadn’t even been to the piers before, I mean I saw Paris is Burning in high school when it played at the Egyptian, and then of course everyone started lip-synching to Madonna and practicing those moves, but that was about all. It was late, and I didn’t see anyone voguing, but there was music, and just as we started walking out onto the pier this queen ran up behind us and said Esme!
And Sid turned, and this queen said girl, I thought you were dead.
And Sid said: I thought I was dead too.
This seemingly chaotic style isn’t just entertaining to read, it’s also economical. This passage carries us along on Terry’s journey to the pier while using scene to characterize. We learn when she grew up and how her expectations of New York City meet reality. But perhaps what this style captures best is how queer culture has learned to confront tragedy directly (girl, I thought you were dead) and still laugh (I thought I was dead too).
The reference to Paris is Burning only strengthens this theme of tragedy and joy. Jennie Livingston’s documentary shows how the ballroom scene grew in response to the homophobia, transphobia and racism New York’s queer African American and Latino communities face. The novel references this culture a few pages later when Terry realizes that they’ve all come to scatter the ashes of their friend JoJo. The ash-scattering ceremony shows the breadth of the ballroom scene’s impact on queer people’s lives in the 90s while also heightening the emotional impact of JoJo’s passing. Her friend Cleo says, “Jojo’s the bitch who taught me to walk” and then proceeds to show how tragically out of place she’d be on a runway. But watching Cleo walk (and almost fall) in remembrance of JoJo is an elevating experience. It changes Terry’s perception. Falls become “another way to fly” as well as an indication of what shoes she should buy: “the ones like String Bean’s with the wedding cake effect.” Fierceness and fashion sit next to the solemnity of the ash-scattering. The last line of the paragraph is poetry: “I tried to hear the ashes land but what do ashes sound like, just the water and the cars and the music, I mean it was the water against the piers or maybe metal slamming a buoy but it was music now.” Expressions like this mixture of joy, tragedy and revolutionary frivolity depend so much on the visual; specifically image and movement. Communicating it effectively and beautifully in words is a literary triumph. Throughout the section on New York and Terry’s childhood, this balance of the personal, cultural, and political is artfully maintained, making for not just fascinating, but exciting reading.
The COVID sections after Terry moves back to her hometown, Seattle, are more focused. That too reflects Terry’s change in character. She returns as a teetotaling, health-conscious person. Between marches in Black Lives Matter protests, she reconnects with her mothers, clashing with them and her neighbors on the politics and strategies of protest. There are moments of extreme frustration and empowerment throughout this section of the book. But I found my feelings of empathy with Terry were often accompanied with exasperation.
Initially Terry feels the warmth of homecoming, but it doesn’t last long. The atmosphere alone makes this harder reading: the COVID pandemic, nationwide Black Lives Matter protests, bitter elections, the constant threat of violence and the unending feeling of loneliness. But the protests quickly consume Terry—and, to an extent, her story. In this final section of the book, so much of what happens in Terry’s personal life is overshadowed by the series of arguments with her mothers, her neighbors and strangers on the streets.
Whenever Terry sees her mothers, Sycamore plants us in the middle of increasingly uncomfortable political conversations. Terry’s defensive flippancy makes for funny reading. Still, she’s understandably annoyed when, during her birthday, one of her mothers ruins a lovely evening with politically charged questions she knows will irritate her.
The next hundred pages go from street protests and scenes of Terry yelling Black Lives Matter slogans from her balcony to heartwarming and funny meetings in a cruisy park with her friend Jaysun. All of these are punctuated with people trying to thwart her. Each instance on its own is equally as frustrating as the birthday ambush. But I found my sympathy shifting. It became hard to empathize with Terry because—well—she’s always right. It’s difficult to identify with someone who never makes mistakes, even if they’re suffering. Terry always finds a way to justify her position and those who disagree with her sometimes feel less like people and more like tools the story uses to add to Terry’s catalogue of torment.
Readers often demand that characters evolve in a novel. We want them to learn from their flaws, giving us a route to self-betterment. Or we want their flaws to lead them to tragedy, a cautionary tale. Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore’s Terry Dactyl doesn’t give us either of those narratives straightforwardly. But by the end of Terry’s story, I was left with the idea that true suffering is the absence of connection with others. The loss of empathy becomes the loss of yourself. These are the kinds of thoughts that make Terry Dactyl hard to put down. Terry’s loneliness, frustration, and inflexible moral framework are traits I recognize in friends and family. And like it or not, Terry makes you family. So, for as exasperating as she can be, it’s hard to think about her without love.
Publisher: Coffee House Press
Publication date: November 11, 2025
Reviewed by David Lewis
David Lewis’s reviews and fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Joyland, Barrelhouse, Strange Horizons, The Weird Fiction Review, Ancillary Review of Books, 21st Century Ghost Stories Volume II, The Fish Anthology, Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 9, The Fairlight Book of Short Stories, Paris Lit Up and others. Originally from Oklahoma, he now lives in France with his husband and dog.