Choir Boy

by Charlie Jane Anders

Twelve-year-old choirboy Berry wants nothing more than to remain a choirboy. Choral music and the prospect of divinity thrill him. Desperate to keep his voice from changing, he tries unsuccessfully to castrate himself, and then convinces a clinic to treat him as a transsexual. Berry begins a series of hormone pills, which keep his voice from deepening but also cause him to grow breasts. When his parents and friends discover the truth about him, Berry faces a world of unexpected gender issues that push him into a universe far more complex than anything he has experienced.

Abounding with bewitching religious symbolism, self-mutilation, bizarre suburban torture, drugs, class-based violence, and hidden meanings, Choir Boy is a wildly inventive and charming story about an outcast who refuses to grow up gracefully.

Genres: Fiction, Young Adult, Transgender, Queer, LGBT, Queer Lit, Contemporary

308 pages, Hardcover

First published April 5, 2005

About the author

My latest book is Victories Greater Than Death. Coming in August: Never Say You Can't Survive: How to Get Through Hard Times By Making Up Stories.

Previously: All the Birds in the Sky, The City in the Middle of the Night, and a short story collection, Six Months, Three Days, Five Others.

Coming soon: An adult novel, and a short story collection called Even Greater Mistakes.

I used to write for a site called io9.com, and now I write for various places here and there.

I won the Emperor Norton Award, for “extraordinary invention and creativity unhindered by the constraints of paltry reason.” I've also won a Hugo Award, a Nebula Award, a William H. Crawford Award, a Theodore Sturgeon Award, a Locus Award and a Lambda Literary Award.

My stories, essays and journalism have appeared in Wired Magazine, the Boston Review, Conjunctions, Tin House, Slate, MIT Technology Review, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, Tor.com, Lightspeed Magazine, McSweeney’s, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, ZYZZYVA, Strange Horizons, Apex Magazine, Uncanny Magazine, 3 AM Magazine, Flurb.net, Monkey Bicycle, Pindeldyboz, Instant City, Broken Pencil, and in tons and tons of anthologies.

I organize Writers With Drinks, which is a monthly reading series here in San Francisco that mashes up a ton of different genres. I co-host a Hugo Award-winning podcast, Our Opinions Are Correct, with Annalee Newitz.

Back in 2007, Annalee and I put out a book of first-person stories by female geeks called She’s Such a Geek: Women Write About Science, Technology and Other Nerdy Stuff. There was a lot of resistance to doing this book, because nobody believed there was a market for writing about female geeks. Also, Annalee and I put out a print magazine called other, which was about pop culture, politics and general weirdness, aimed at people who don’t fit into other categories. To raise money for other magazine, we put on events like a Ballerina Pie Fight – which is just what it sounds like – and a sexy show in a hair salon where people took off their clothes while getting their hair cut.

I used to live in a Buddhist nunnery, when I was a teenager. I love to do karaoke. I eat way too much spicy food. I hug trees and pat stone lions for luck. I talk to myself way too much when I’m working on a story.

Reviews

[Imogen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't want to talk a bunch of shit, because obviously Charlie Anders the person and activist is a friggin wonderful genius, so I'm just going to make one point:

I know a lot of transsexual women. (I may even know more transsexual women than most people.) A majority of those transsexual women that I know are not irresponsible, high femme sex workers, but you wouldn't know that from reading books, would you?

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's funny how this book, which broke ground as the first YA trans novel, can seem dated a mere 3 years later. While the book was interesting, it is not the best thing out there for trans teens anymore. Watching the main character Berry bumble through his mixed reasons for taking T or his ambivalence at being a woman or his insane parents is just painful at times. The overall sense of whimsy is hard to maintain over the course of the novel and some of the characters are just so baffling that it is hard to get into. I think if I was the kind of person who liked books where characters are constantly emotionally contradictory and events are randomly strange, I might have enjoyed it more, but instead I just found it increasing annoying and muddled.

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Choir Boy is a poorly written, great story.
Why does this keep happening to me.
The premise is pretty hilarious, yet as the book rolls on its less and less so.
Not screwed up enough to hold my attention I suppose.
But I had to finish it because I have stopped half way into 2 books this summer...........
AAAAAAAAAAAAhg

[Richard]

A gonzo Confederacy of Dunces mixed with Sarah, Choir Boy combines off-kilter humor and its own brand of modern day magic in a rollicking, bittersweet story about growing up different. Twelve year old Berry wants nothing more than to remain a choir boy. Choral music and the prospect of divinity thrill him. His fellow humans-from his feuding parents to the teenage transsexual prostitute who befriends him-always let him down. So in an effort to prevent his approaching puberty and exile from the choir, Berry injures himself, then convinces a clinic to give him testosterone inhibiting drugs. But there's a catch-the drugs come with a hefty dose of female hormones. Suddenly Berry finds himself with a set of B-cups and a lot of explaining to do. In the resulting uproar that overtakes the church and town, Berry faces what is both monstrous and silly about humanity and falls in love in the process. Choir Boy is both a journey across genders and a wildly inventive romp alongside an outcast who refuses to grow up gracefully. Abounding with bewitching religious symbolism, self-mutilation, bizarre suburban torture, drugs, class-based violence and hidden meanings, Choir Boy unmasks the very adult world most children live in. A fantastical coming of age fable in the tradition of Geek Love, Charlie Anders's first novel reminds us just how much power and horror there is in following one's true heart.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Berry wants to remain a choirboy forever, but his voice is near to changing. After a failed attempt to solve the problem with some impulsive self-surgery, he learns about drugs. But in order to get the drugs, he has to say he wants to be a girl. So he ends up with drugs that save his voice, but also give him breasts.

I had trouble getting into this book at first, because it was all about choirs and choirboys, and well, that was not interesting me. But I picked the book up again and got to the part that interested me more.

This definitely isn't the feelgood read of Luna or Parrotfish, because there's lots of abuse, and crazy adults. In some ways, it's like an episode of South Park, where the adults are doing weird and stupid things, and being in general, clueless.

On the plus side, Berry is confused. That is, he's not the standard 'I was born a girl' character. His main goal is to remain a choirboy for longer, and then he gets to try out being a girl and thinks maybe that's not so bad after all. Maybe he does want to be a girl. Or maybe he doesn't. It shows a character who doesn't fit into the slots people are trying to put him into.

One thing that does bug me by the end of it all, is that no one ever pointed out to him that he can't remain a choirboy forever. If he takes female hormones, he'll grow up to have a female voice. If he doesn't, he'll grow up to have a male voice. If he takes the castrati route, he'll have the voice of a castrato. None of those is the same as a boy's voice. Are there drugs that let you stay a boy and not mature at all? I'm not sure. I know there's at least one rare medical condition. But castration, chemical or otherwise, is not the way to do it.

In the end, I'm going to call this a tragicomic novel.

[James Warner · Rating 5 out of 5]

An alternative Young Adult novel, about finding a community when you're different, about trying to retain your own voice in the face of the onslaught of adolescence. Kept edgy by frequent flashes of Anders's crazed humor -- "Did you know the pygmy shark eats its own young unless they disguise themselves as fecal matter?" In this spirit, parents and other authority figures are portrayed as dangerous, so that camouflage is advisable -- but fortunately the authority figures soon turn out to be at least as deviant as everyone else. The choirboy protagonist self-reinvents as an alien supermodel, but still prefers church to nightclubs because "it's culture and spiritual stuff and dress-up all rolled into one." The affirming lesson is that nobody is normal and it's just as well because life would be dull otherwise. A good gift for anyone who hit adolescence early and sees no reason to leave it behind: let the choir sing on.

[Joe McKee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Choir Boy makes you cringe and laugh at the same time. This book is like a bad dream and an action movie roled into one. Berry is a wonderful hero/punching bag. His voice is the vehicle that drives the story to the edge of tragedy, but just teases you on the edge of it - leaning out just enough to be a rush. I like that Berry was not portrayed as a victim, rather he was a reckless fearless realist. Good book.

[J. · Rating 2 out of 5]

A really fantastic concept, and a protagonist that I really felt a great deal of empathy for, but the writing buries both under trivialities; more like a series of vignettes than a novel (which can work in a postmodern sense, but doesn't, here). Kind of upsetting, too, because I really wanted to like this novel when I started but after 100 pages I pulled the ripcord. A lot of potential for this author, so keep an eye out for more work, but this novel? Not so much.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this boisterous trangender teen romp from our friendly acquaintance, Facebook friend and fellow San Franciscan (at least part-time) Charlie Anders. Bicoastal, bisexual, editor of *other* magazine, Charlie's prose will have you rolling on the floor. As a female alto who always wanted to be a boy soprano, I was truly touched by this story of a choir boy who doesn't want to lose his beautiful treble voice -- and is willing to take hormones to keep it.

[Alvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A charming romp through a subject (gender variance) that too often gets treated with plodding earnestness and sanctimonious cant.

[Bridget · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I'd liked this book better than I did. CJA is a really great writer and editor and I love what she does with io9 but this book didn't do a lot for me though I wanted to really like it more.

[Elfscribe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I guarantee you've never read another story quite like Choir Boy. The main character Berry is a 13 year old boy struggling to fit in. Routinely beat up at school, saddled with highly dysfunctional parents who pay little attention to him and don't understand him in the slightest, the only place he feels that he belongs and can excel is as a member of a boys choir. He's thrilled to have his skill recognized by the choir director and finally be given a solo, but then a friend's voice cracks during practice and Berry's faced with the prospect of his voice changing and having to leave. He hears about the famed castrati and attempts an impromptu surgery, which sounds way worse than it's presented in the story. (Okay, so it was a bad idea on Berry's part.) His understandably horrified mother gets him a therapist who determines that Berry's problem is he really wants to be a woman and prescribes hormones, which cause him to grow breasts. This leads to changed relationships with his parents (his father is horrified, his mother thrilled to have a daughter), new acquaintances including a trans character who introduces Berry to a strange romp through alternative San Francisco. Everyone Berry meets seems to want to mold him into something they understand but has nothing to do with what he really wants. A rather bemused Berry goes along for the ride. The cover of the book called him a "sweet and nerdy accidental trans-kid" and that is a perfect description.

The plot summary really doesn't do the story justice as it sounds very dark and while it does have that aspect -- many of the characters simply can't understand and react in violent ways-- seen through Berry's innocent, matter-of-fact, and often wry perspective, it becomes an Alice in Wonderland kind of world in which gender roles are turned upside down and back up again and people's prejudices shown in a new light. It's often humorous and I found I really loved Berry and wanted him to be able to stay forever young so that he could continue singing his unique song. The ending was uplifting, happy for now, although I did worry about what would happen to Berry afterwards.
A strange, amazing, and beautifully written story. I recommend it.

[Olivia Smithhisler · Rating 5 out of 5]

The readers who think this book is outdated and offensive seem to be missing the point — this novel is a snapshot in time, a glimpse into a past where the term “non-binary” wasn’t a part of the cultural lexicon yet. Choir Boy paints a beautiful picture that shows us not all transgender people are the same, while also being honest about the common experiences and lifestyles of trans people in the early 2000s. This was the first novel written by transgender icon Charlie Anders, and she perfectly captures the inner world of 13 year old Berry — all the confusion and awkwardness of being a middle schooler, the struggle to fight to live authentically, and the panic of growing up. Berry is lovable from start to finish. Cis people can all find something relatable in Berry, while also peeking into and growing in understanding of the life of a person questioning their gender identity. This novel manages to be poignant, laugh-out-loud hilarious, gut-wrenching, and educational all at once. I truly loved this unique story.

[Kylie Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Odd!* (in a good way?)

feels dated but still a worthy & unique story! was definitely lugging thru to finish

***odd as in the lizard brain-child abuse-parenting techniques + unimaginable cruelty and devotion of church-affiliated children, not odd as in the confused trans youth way

[Aaron DeLuca · Rating 3 out of 5]

hard to get into it really at first, but thought it became a really interesting look at gender dysphoria in youth. Interesting that Barry's pronouns never change and a lot of the pressure to transition come externally from people around him, rather than from within Barry

[Skylark · Rating 3 out of 5]

i felt like it wasnt pulling off what it was going for early on but it settled into a fun pynchony vibe near the end

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has so much rep that people crave these days and it was published 15+ years ago -- super well done and jarring, too.

[Nyaro Quontréll · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise is great. The editing is atrocious.