Growing Into Yourself, Coming Into Another
A look at McKenzie Wark’s 2020 memoir Reverse Cowgirl
Memoir can be a tricky thing. Memories fade, opinions change and everyone experiences things differently. Reverse Cowgirl, MeKenzie Wark’s “autoethnography of the opacity of the self” doesn’t have a conventional bent to it’s telling, but then it’s not a conventional story that Wark tells, either.
A professor at the New School in New York and the author of several books of theory (see: my piece on her book Molecular Red) turns her gaze inward on this one, a narrative of her becoming and history of the self. Or, I suppose to put it in less high flautin’ terms, it’s a trans memoir. I can hear the moaning already: aren’t there enough of those already? Haven’t we all read the likes of, say. McCloskey’s Crossing? Well, maybe, but Reverse Cowgirl is a memoir of a different sort.
Told in brief, dreamlike images that splash across the page, and sprinkled with a liberal dash of theory and literature, Reverse Cowgirl goes out of its way to upend the form. It’s got at least one foot in the door of French autofiction - Guillaume Dustan and Jean Genet are both quoted by Wark - and another in Marxist theory. Wark deftly weaves between these two poles, creating a form that’s almost ethereal in its feeling, like a pair of tights stretched to the breaking point. It’s a compelling story that takes you from Australia of the 1970s and early 80s, a time of good drugs and loud music, up to and into New York of 2000s, into sex clubs and adult bookstores, mansions and dives, and into more than a few bedrooms.
Indeed, there’s a lot of sex here. Sex with men, with women, by being pentrated or by doing the penetration. Sometimes on drugs, other times sober. What’s interesting about Wark’s telling of it isn’t the way it happens, but in the mood she’s able to evoke. Sex is passionate and furious, fulfilling and empting. It’s a way to rid the mind of the self, a way to escape past feelings Wark describes, ones she never quite labels dysphoria but seem to hit all its marks. To wit:
“The body brought to the surface, that the black mesh brought out, was a body that nearly always felt rather femme anyway, even when bound down to the everyday world, with it’s thin wrists and waist, its soft skin and long hair. I would have liked bigger tits, of course. And perhaps more uniquely, I thought my ass wasn’t quite fat enough. And I was always ashamed of my malformed feet. But a girl has to work with what she’s got. Even a non-girl.” (pg 96)
Feelings like that, about the body and feeling one has to work with what one’s got - along with a desire for what one doesn’t have - are ones I know well from years of dysphoria and hiding, from looking in mirrors and scrutinizing myself, of looking for traces of the person I see myself as mentally, but never actually see in the flesh. My girlfriend calls these “bad brain gremlins” and insists I have to kick them out, but it’s hard and as I turn 36, I find it easier and easier to live with them and accept myself. But, back to the book.
The wide range of authors Wark quotes ranges from contemporary trans authors back to Edgar Allen Poe. True to form, there are several bits from Kathy Acker, an author Wark knows well - she’s published a book of their correspondence and another that engages with Acker’s body of work. But it’s most interesting when Wark mixes theory as a counter melody to the narrative, drawing out it’s implications and illuminating her insights. It works in another way, too: when she quotes, say, Guy Debord, she often follows it up in a more casual and colloquial voice, bringing the narrative back down to reality. This melody/counter melody gives Reverse Cowgirl an interesting sort of flow, one where you feel you’re being spoken to in confidence, not in a classroom. It works pretty effectively and kept me on my toes.
At the same time: to misquote Warren Zevon, I’d like to meet her bookshelves.
This was not one I expected to enjoy as much as I did. Phrases like Autotheory and Autofiction tend to make my eyes glaze over and worry the author has an inflated sense of self. That they’re coming down from above me and feel I must be spoken down to, like I’m petit bourgeois, clinging to outdated modes of form. I also expected something more of a tight-wire act, a book that was showing off i’s learnedness and trying to exhibit itself as a spectacle of education and intellect and...
But I was surprised: in Reverse Cowgirl, Wark comes off as pretty down to Earth and self aware, someone who made a bunch of mistakes and isn’t above poking gentle fun at herself. It’s a thoughtful book and it’s earnest, too: when she writes about what David Bowie meant to her, it’s hard not to sympathize (indeed, one wishes she would make a playlist). It’s nice she left out parts of the narrative - spoiler: her relationship with a punk novelist is only alluded to - because it lets her focus on what she’s trying to tell, and I think she’s done a pretty good job of it. It’s an unconventional read, sure, but it’s one I found hard to put down (I read it in a couple of marathon sittings) and it’s one I’d recommend.