I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.
— Barry Goldwater, 1964, in his acceptance speech as the Republican candidate for the presidency of the United States.
A sleepy campus in Ohio. Summer of ’64. Mingus, the Beatles, Nightwood, the fever dream of Goldwater, late night student conversations—all in the sights of gun culture. Two unforgettable trans characters navigate acceptance, intimacy, and regenesis. In Defense of Liberty captures an in-real-time state of being for transgender and gender-curious folks (and all of us who love them). It is brave. And it is breathtaking.
Linda Svendsen, author of Marine Life and Sussex Drive.
Fast-paced and intimate, personal and political, queer and beautiful — just like the gorgeously drawn ensemble cast, truth and memory must sweat it out under the relentless Ohio sun. The kind of storytelling that pushes the boundaries of what a historical novel can be and leaves you wondering what history itself is.
Carrie Jenkins, author of Victoria Sees It and Sad Love.
EXCERPT FROM IN THE DEFENSE OF LIBERTY
“Okay, honey,” Lorianne said, “so maybe it’s goose and gander time. You had your sweet little coeds here to visit, right? And I was the perfect little hostess, wasn’t I? Aren’t I always the perfect little hostess? Okay, so now it’s my turn. What if I want to sleep with Mason?”
Henry’s head jerked up. “Jesus, Lorianne, that’s not funny. I’ve just about had it with your shit.”
“Yeah? Well, the feeling’s mutual.”
“Stop it. You’re just going to embarrass yourself. Yeah, you’re going to hate yourself tomorrow. Clean up your act. Lay off the sauce. Make some coffee. Put some shoes on, for Christ’s sake.”
“Shoes? Oh, dear Lord in heaven, that’s the first thing that pops into your little pea brain?” She exaggerated her accent. “Aw, come on, sweetheart, you know I didn’t own a pair of shoes till I was out of hah school. Us ignorant hoopies are like that. Hard yaller callous on our feet an inch thick.”
The jazz on the hi-fi had taken control of the room now, nobody talking. Mason had frozen solid as a brickbat. Fuck these people.
Suddenly Carl was attempting to sing. “The first time I seen little Maggie, she was standing by the still house door…”
Thank God for Carl trying to be funny. “Shoes and stockings in her hand,” he was singing, “little bare feet on the floor.”
“Yeah?” Lorianne fired right back at him, “and the last time you seen her, she was setting on the banks of the sea.”
Carl gave her a good laugh, that’s the way he liked things to go, you deciphered his stupid in-jokes instantly and you came right back at him instantly and flipped him one better. Even Henry had to smile at that. Maybe it was all going to be okay. “Hoopie girl speaks,” Carl said.
“You’re goddamn right, hoopie girls speaks. Yeah, us hoopies, living in our shacks built out of road signs way somewhere out back of the ridge, plunking on our banjos, speaking Chaucer’s English, drinking white moon, dodging revenuers, shooting strangers, screwing our relatives, sleeping with a passel of coonhounds, living on pan-fried squirrel and dandelion greens, maybe a possum thrown in every once in awhile just for the sake of variety.”
She’d got both Henry and Carl laughing with that one. Maybe Mason was the only one who could see how icy cold furious she was.
“Fuck you guys,” she said then, her voice different, “from the great metropolis. New York, London, Rome, Paris, none of them can live up to Canton, Ohio, right? Well, you guys can just go fuck yourselves,” and she spun around directly toward Henry. “Who do you think you are to think you’re better than me? I’m sick of you treating me like dirt. Bringing your little coeds in here. Slapping me around every time you feel like it.”
“Jesus,” Henry said, shocked, addressing all of them, “I never touched her.”
“Oh? Really? You never touched me so it would show.”
Jessie all of a sudden was across the room. She pushed Mason hard. “Get the fuck out of here.”
©Keith Maillard, 2023
In the Defense of Liberty is published by Freehand Books.