Contents
"The Mountain"
1. Place
Clearcut: Explaining the Distance
Losing Home
Clearcut: Brutes and Bumper Stickers
Clearcut: ...
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reviews
Apr 09, 2007
Colin
rated it: 
Exile and Pride changed my life and transformed my political outlook at age 23. It provided a critical analysis of ableism that helped me finally understand how my experiences as a queer with cerebral palsy fit into a radical social justice framework. His writing on language, the body, history, class, and the environment is engaging, hopeful and personal. I felt his race analysis was problematic overall, though the chapter on the freakshow is excellent. A must-read for everyone concerned with
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Jan 17, 2012
Miyuki
rated it: 
Read this for class. I found some things (though they were minor, petty things in all honesty) hard to latch onto on a personal level but what this book says is so important. Clare is fearless and funny, strong and stubborn in the way that a good example of critical thought on society should be. I enjoyed the book and the discussions had on it very much. One of the most vital ideas contained within this book is the idea that nobody is a perfect all-righteous activist. Things in life will contrad
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Apr 23, 2010
E
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I expected to have strong feelings about this book. For some time I'd avoided reading it because I find some of Clare's subsequent work rather off-putting; I think he drastically oversimplifies the relationship between pride and shame, and I cringe at the suggestion that people who can 'pass' as 'normative' have an ethical responsibility to forfeit their privacy for a variety of liberation that they may not desire. But as I was struggling to come to terms with my own chronic pain this winter I f
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Apr 08, 2009
Spicy T AKA Mr. Tea
rated it:
What a wonderfully written and engaging work. I was totally engaged by the way that Eli was able to tease out the nuances and conflicts that have been apart of his life. He never quite resolves things--do we ever?--but his capacity to weave together many different and conflicting stories of his life is amazing. It's a pleasure to read authors who have the ability to make connections across boundaries--authors who actively seek to break down the separations in life and show--with brilliance--the
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Jul 27, 2011
Millicent
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Exile and Pride reads like two books in one. The first, a personal unraveling of experiences growing up poor and genderqueer with cerebral palsy in a rural white logging town in Oregon, and the second, a deeper and more theoretical analysis of ableist oppression, cultural constructions of disability, and disability activism for self-determination, also grounded in thoughtful examination of Clare's personal experience.
Clare writes ambivalently about his ties to rural land and the val More...
Clare writes ambivalently about his ties to rural land and the val More...
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Feb 01, 2008
lia
rated it:
When I was in college, I took a class about place, and about the complexities of 'home' and 'work' and the economy of place and all sorts of other things. This was in the pacific northwest, and in my class, you guessed it, were a lot of hippies. It was exciting for many of us to look at how being against something like clearcutting shouldn't make you unable to think about what it means for the economy, for the people who cut the trees, mill the trees and pulp the trees. How caring about spotted
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Jan 05, 2008
Nomy
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melodie got me this book for chanukah. i've been hearing about it for years and finally got to read it. eli is a deep thinker and takes readers along with his train of thought (from what i know, eli uses masc. pronouns now - at the time of the writing he was butch-dyke identified). the theme of exile has to do with the home he loved and left for lots of reasons - queerness, abuse, general lack of options. the descriptions of his lost rural northwest logging town are full of emotion but not se
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Nov 23, 2011
Darren
rated it:
Just starting it, but it's definitely an interesting read. It's an moving look at the reality of intersecting identities in the life of someone with roots in rural Southern Oregon. Explorations of environmentalism, classism, ableism, and heterosexism rooted in the life of one individual. I'm enjoying it enough after two chapters to want to buy copies for friends. Will say more when I finish it.
Oct 18, 2011
Allison
rated it:
Clare uses language to articulate the complexity that is being working class, disabled and queer among other identities, such as survivor. I did not expect such a long history of logging or freak shows, but she needed that to connect us with her entire lived experience.
I appreciated the questions weaves throughout the prose, but I also appreciated how Clare herself did not back down from answering them.
It was also nice to see a writer from Ann Arbor.
I appreciated the questions weaves throughout the prose, but I also appreciated how Clare herself did not back down from answering them.
It was also nice to see a writer from Ann Arbor.
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Feb 24, 2010
Danielle
rated it:
Loved part of this book. Part II is excellent. Clare brings up the social stigmas and assumptions revolving around sexuality and disability, the portrayal of disabled people, and how sexism, racism, homophobia, and violence can shape a child's identity.
Jan 05, 2009
eli clare is so fucking amazing. it's all about growing up with disability, queerness, ruralness, and being trans/genderqueer. but it's not theory, it's sort of like a thoughtful, brilliant memoir. god, i love eli clare.
Jun 26, 2008
McLean
rated it:
A thought-provoking meditation on equality, liberalism, and social justice. Eli Clare examines the complicated nuances of many issues that are often treated in very black-and-white terms, discussing the moral complexities of reconciling environmental responsibility with our responsibility to rural communities whose economies are based on fishing or logging, analysing the changing attitudes towards disability in our society, and trying to tease out the relations and differences in urban / rural d
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Nov 17, 2009
anne
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i feel like this book is an example of how good books can be. i return to it again and again for its melding of theory and history and memoir.
Mar 08, 2011
Rachael
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Excellent book so far. Will finish very soon for my class. There is something to be said about memoirs written by writers...much, much better! Kudos to you, Eli! Excellent book!
Mar 17, 2010
South End
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Nominated for the 2009 ForeWord Book of the Year Award! Final awards announced on May 25.
Jan 25, 2008
jessi lee
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this book was a gift, and it meant alot to me to read it. eli's use of the idea of exile in relation to queerness & surviving violence & economics & rural life were really helpful to me in thinking about my relationship to the upper penninsula. it gave me a way of wrapping my head around all of the different kinds of loving & turning away that keep me uncertain how to talk about "where i'm from."
eli's discussion of disability & freak history was also really good. i think th More...
eli's discussion of disability & freak history was also really good. i think th More...
Mar 06, 2011
rae
rated it:
brilliant and beautifully written analysis and exploration of the body, disability justice, environmental destruction, capitalism, home, displacement/exile, gender, and queer liberation. there are no easy answers to the questions he raises, but he explores them with surprising honesty and humility.
READ IT.
seriously. i've been conveniently leaving it out in the break room at work, praying that my coworkers will pick it up and leaf through it during their down time.
READ IT.
seriously. i've been conveniently leaving it out in the break room at work, praying that my coworkers will pick it up and leaf through it during their down time.
Jan 07, 2010
AJ
rated it:
This is a great memoir / set of essays. Clare provides a fascinating glimpse into the intersection of disability, class and gender throughout hir life and ties it in to issues as diverse as higher education, clear-cutting old growth forests and finding a community you can call home.
Sep 28, 2008
Elizabeth
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This was not exactly what I was expecting. I am not sure what I was -- the focus on environmentalism took me by surprise, that's one thing -- and that's not to say this is a bad book. It isn't; it's a thoughtful, incisive dissection of the intersection of class, disability, and sexuality, against a backdrop of the Pacific Northwest. But I was expecting something more powerful, I guess; this didn't leave me shaken and blinking as my world broke apart and reformed afresh.
Nov 02, 2008
Kim
rated it:
A bookgroup read. Well written, even if I wanted the author to delve a little more into some of the topics, and give the reader a little more credit for possibly not being a jerk/uninformed. The writing was lyrical, though.
(I'm finding the weird thing about bookgroup is that I like a book less by the time I walk out of the room. I'm not sure if that's an effect of book groups in general, or this particular bookgroup.)
(I'm finding the weird thing about bookgroup is that I like a book less by the time I walk out of the room. I'm not sure if that's an effect of book groups in general, or this particular bookgroup.)
Jun 16, 2008
Mat
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This book often resurfaces in my head. I feel like some of the ideas counter the obvious truisms about disability, class, and environment in such a way that reading this book accomplished two things. It bent some of my my ideas in a really good mind-opening way and simultaneously emboldened me and gave me a better language to explain some other ideas that had been buried in the back of my brain for a while.
Jan 04, 2008
Clio
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This is a super amazing exploration of intersectional identity. It's personal, confessional, and awesome, and it reads like your activist friend wrote it cuz that's what happened. The narrative structure flows really well and they talk about growing up working class in a logging town in Oregon, disability, genderqueerness, and horizontal oppression.
Jan 08, 2008
AnitaDurt
rated it:
this is one of my favorites on the intersections of class, race, gender, ability, and sexual identity. it's also got a lot about the 'freakshow' a history in regards to race and ability in particular, but also in relation to queerness. its also a memoir so i felt really pulled into the book...the personal is political after all...
Jul 22, 2009
Elizabeth
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Exile and Pride is one of many books on disability that prompted me to understand what "the personal is political" means. Clare's memoir encouraged me to be thoughtful about the impact of my own disability on my interactions with others. I felt so much less alone in myself and my body after reading Exile and Pride.
