Vanishing Monuments

by John Elizabeth Stintzi

★SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2021 AMAZON CANADA FIRST NOVEL AWARD★

A brilliant novel whose lead character returns home to their long-estranged mother who is now suffering from dementia.

Alani Baum, a non-binary photographer and teacher, hasn't seen their mother since they ran away with their girlfriend when they were seventeen - almost thirty years ago. But when Alani gets a call from a doctor at the assisted living facility where their mother has been for the last five years, they learn that their mother's dementia has worsened and appears to have taken away her ability to speak. As a result, Alani suddenly find themselves running away again - only this time, they're running back to their mother.

Staying at their mother's empty home, Alani attempts to tie up the loose ends of their mother's life while grappling with the painful memories that - in the face of their mother's disease - they're terrified to lose. Meanwhile, the memories inhabiting the house slowly grow animate, and the longer Alani is there, the longer they're forced to confront the fact that any closure they hope to get from this homecoming will have to be manufactured.

This beautiful, tenderly written debut novel by Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers winner John Elizabeth Stintzi explores what haunts us most, bearing witness to grief over not only what is lost, but also what remains.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Queer, Contemporary, Canada, Transgender, Literary Fiction

304 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2020

About the author

John Elizabeth Stintzi is an award-winning trans writer and visual artist who was born and raised on a cattle farm in northwestern Ontario, and is currently writing and living in the United States.

They are the winner of the 2019 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award, the 2019 Long Poem Prize from The Malahat Review, and the inaugural Sator New Works Award from Two Dollar Radio. Their work has been published in places like Ploughshares,Black Warrior Review, PRISM International, Kenyon Review Online, and Best Canadian Poetry.

Their debut novel Vanishing Monuments (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2020) was a finalist for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award and their debut poetry collection Junebat (House of Anansi, 2020) was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award. Their newest novel, My Volcano (Two Dollar Radio (US) and Arsenal Pulp Press (CA/UK) 2022, Tlon (ITALY) 2023, and Cielo Santo (SPAIN) 2024) and was longlisted for the Brooklyn Public Library's 2022 Book Prize for Fiction, and named a best book of the year by Kirkus Reviews, New York Public Library, The Independent Review, and others.

Their latest book, a collection of short stories called Bad Houses, came out from Arsenal Pulp Press in 2024. They are currently at work illustrating their first graphic novel: Automaton Deactivation Bureau.

Reviews

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read this book approximately 7 million times and still don't hate it. Nice.

[Sarah Cavar · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely moving exercise in trans-narrative — not narrative-with-trans-MC but a narrative across genders and bodies, that rightfully represents trans people as archival rather than one-note. I can’t speak highly enough of this novel, particularly stinzi’s style — the different-gendering of Al across time and circumstance, the attention to the way in which a person is hailed rather than reliance on “intrinsic truth,” and the quilting of memories rather than use of linear narrative.

See my inter-review with Stintzi at The Adroit Journal!

[Sage Agee · Rating 4 out of 5]

The use of the extended metaphor of the memory palace and photography to write about trans identity and memory loss… fantastic.

[Luke Hillier · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Sarah Kay's poem, "Extended Development," she muses that, while poets and photographers may have learned the art of "capture," they must begin to learn the "art of letting go." The sentiment felt especially relevant reading Vanishing Monuments, a novel written by a poet about a photographer who, despite many attempts to let go of the vestiges of their origins, spends the bulk of the book attempting to do so with even greater finality. This book surprised me; I was not anticipating its densely beautiful language, its somewhat experimental and surrealist structure, or its complex, layered storytelling. And, to be honest, these three qualities overlapped to make it a somewhat difficult book to get through. The non-linear, sporadic timeline constantly erodes any sense of momentum the story might otherwise build, and the actual plot itself is in reality utterly mundane, despite how deeply Stinzi imbues it with powerful interior pathos. And yet, it easily earned four stars for me, because while the book made me work to enjoy it, I was glad to have put in the effort not just at the end, but all the way through.

Stinzi's language here is some of the most striking prose I've read in a long time. You can tell that they are a poet, and countless sentences here, shimmering with creative insight, could've been imported from a contemporary poem. At first, this felt overwhelming, maybe indulgent, but I came to appreciate the buffet of clever metaphors and poignantly phrased revelations that consume Alani's inner dialogue. Similarly, it took about a hundred pages to get (somewhat, never entirely) used to the stop-start rhythm of storytelling, jumping from the present plot following Alani's return to Winnipeg to various threads of memory from their upbringing, adulthood, and time in Germany as well as the surprisingly prominent scenes from their "memory palace." The sections from the latter are the most surreal and experimental in the book; readers are taken into Alani's mental map of their childhood home, populated with dozens of versions of their past selves and housing the array of traumas that have indelibly shaped their identity, no matter how badly they've tried to erase and escape them.

In many ways, Alani has lived a quietly tragic life, and I appreciated Stinzi's restraint in avoiding more boldly devastating blows that seem inevitable in another writer's hand. There is a pervasive loneliness and alienation that looms over the book, obviously related to Alani's estrangement with their mother but also with various loved ones in their lives and, most crucially, their own self. Stinzi's depiction of nonbinary gender identity here is particularly fascinating (and, obviously, not a monolithic representation of what that involves). Alani takes on a kaleidoscopic host of identities throughout their life, adopting the feminine personas of Allie, Sofia, and Hedwig (their mother) at times, binding and going as Al at others, and inhabiting Alani elsewhere. This is obviously a compelling expression of their gender identity, but it also speaks to the fracturing within Alani's sense of self, and I found the scenes in which their plurality (which almost feels like a pun on the use of non-gendered singular "they") is manifest through visions of other versions to be so striking and even eerie, as if they're being haunted by ghosts of their own self. (Spoiler: This dovetails beautifully at the end, as Alani recognizes the multiplicity of their mother as well, which seems to be a catalyst for their capacity to move towards true forgiveness.) The book is also, and even more so, a meditation on memory: the monuments we erect and destroy as a means of bearing witness, offering reminder, capturing a moment, editing it through the lens of our own experience. As someone who enjoys photography, I loved Stinzi's embrace of that motif in relation to this theme.

The remainder of the review has a few spoilers, so heads up. One thing I was really curious about was Stinzi's resistance to allowing for any seemingly satisfying closure between Alani and their mother, especially when two opportunities were explicitly raised. The nurse suggests Alani arrange for them to take their mother out of the home for a day, presumably to visit her former house one last time before it is sold, and to re-enter that space alongside Alani again...but this never happens, or is even addressed again. Similarly, we follow Alani's photographic endeavor, memorializing different parts of the house where old furniture once stood, which climaxes in them photographing their mother for the first time...only to expose the film to sunlight, rendering it blank. That moment in particular elicited a visceral reaction from me, and I wasn't sure what its motivation was, especially given that Alani seemed to reignite some tenderness towards their mother and didn't end the book wanting to forget her entirely. If you have thoughts on this, I'd love to hear them!

[Ab · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written story of self, personal past, and home. Bonus that Winnipeg features prominently

[Christopher Alonso · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strange in the best way, a labyrinth of book. Stintzi's debut is definitely one to watch out for.

[Niamh ní Mara · Rating 5 out of 5]

The prose in this novel is so beautiful it's impossible to recover from. I found myself holding my breath for the last few pages, coming away from it disoriented and lightheaded. This book is one of those rare novels that leaves you changed on the other side of its pages. What an indelible meditation on grief and the embodiment of memory. Outstanding.

[df parizeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautifully crafted book and I am both sad to be through with its story, but elated to have read it and to now be able to hold it on my mind and heart.

[Alanna Why · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interior novel about memory, trauma and gender as connected to one person's estranged relationship with their Mother, their only parent, and their childhood home. Reminded me a lot of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous in terms of prose-style and theme. Long review to come in the August issue of The /t3mz/ Review.

[Emrys Donaldson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really loved this important novel about self-discovery and moving on from the past. The narrator's relationship with the mother character is well-rendered, complicated and fraught. The memory palace sections provided excellent insight into the protagonist. Looking forward very much to what Stintzi writes next!

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is incredible, but if you know Stintzi's work, then you already knew that.

[Suveah :)]

felt very similar to how my own brain works so that was fun and haunting. certainly had its flaws but overall left me feeling hollowed out (in a good way)

[Tiff · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a beautifully written, extremely poignant novel.

I will admit, I am not a person that typically takes to literary fiction, unless I am familiar with the author, or the story itself really speaks to me.

But wow. This one will sit with me for awhile. It was just so well-written, and absolutely striking. 4.5/5 stars, easily.

[Carla Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love how this character shows us deeply into contrasting periods of life in their long journey to find identity and their process coping with different types of their grief.

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

VANISHING MONUMENTS by John Elizabeth Stintzi is a fantastic novel! This multilayered story is about a non binary photographer and professor, Alani, who returns to their childhood home and tries to reconcile with their past.
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Right away I loved the representation with the non binary main character. I also loved the story structure as each chapter is a room in the house which is reflected in the book as Alani describes her old house as a memory palace. Through this metaphor each room holds specific memories and we discover how Alani’s life has unfolded. There’s a particularly moving section where Alani talks about their body that made me cry and you know I love a book that makes me cry! I loved this book! I loved the central themes of remembering, gender, home, and closure. Such a stunning debut novel!
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I’m so excited to read JES’s forthcoming novel My Volcano now!!

[Becca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is stunning and unique. Though the pacing is intentionally slow, the writing is so lovely that I enjoyed taking my time working through it. The novel touches on deeply personal and complex matters through the main character’s reflections in a way that was obviously handled with care. Stintzi does a fantastic job of making sure not to alienate readers without sacrificing any of the nuance of this story. It will not be a book for everybody but I sincerely hope that those who read it will be touched. Thank you to Netgalley for advanced access to the audiobook in exchange for an honest review! The narration was wonderful.

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alani, a gender non-binary photographer, gets word that hir mother’s dementia has worsened in the care home. Ze makes the journey back to Winnipeg, the city of hir childhood—across the USA/Canada border, sucked back through decades of hir life. In addition to visiting hir mom, there’s the house ze shared with hir mom and its contents to deal with.
Those are non-gender pronouns: hir rather than him or her, ze rather than she or he. Even the two cats in the tale are each individually a they/them/their. Author John Elizabeth Stintzi assists the reader early on in the narrative with the introduction of another character using those pronouns. As the novel is written in the first person but described here in the third, I will use those pronouns for this review.
It is not just the home of hir childhood to which ze returns. Ze submerses hirself in hir memory palace. The memory palace serves as a mnemonic device structuring the last thirty years or so of hir life. It mirrors the physical home Alani shared with hir mother. Much like the way photographs bring into the present a scene of the past, so also the memory palace, triggered by the physical childhood home, brings the events of Alani’s life into hir flow of consciousness. Alani’s has life spanned three different countries. It’s been comprised of times of male, female and non-binary identification.
In her progressive dementia, Alani’s mother has lost the capacity to speak and she is unresponsive to Alani’s presence. Alani’s visits to hir mom in the care home are thus empty of connection. Much like hir mother’s camera, which Alani keeps strung around her neck, Alani’s mom seems like the empty camera—no film inside to register the reality of Alani’s visit.
Told as flow-of-consciousness narration, Alani’s story reverberates between the present and the past. Scenes bounce between Hamburg, Minneapolis and Winnipeg. The characters of significant others from Alani’s life gradually take shape through hir memories. The texture of the novel is the gradual sketching in of relationship details and life events as more memories emerge. Much as images do on a film, the narrative gradually emerges in the developing process.
This is a novel of phrases as much as it is of sentences—phrases that depict idiosyncratic meanings, meanings that disrupt thought. As a straight cis male reader, one having lived more than a couple of decades longer than our forty-ish Alani, most of the read was one of disorientation, disorientation and impatience that it could not have been told in a more straightforward fashion. Early on, I even questioned whether or not it was readable at all. Gradually though, I was drawn into greater ease with the flow with the narrator’s mind. I came to embrace its challenges and unique style.
I noted rampant anthropomorphism throughout, annoyed by it until a realized that such was just another expression of the non-binary nature of Alani’s consciousness.
This was not a rapid read. This was not an easy read. As a work of fiction, this story took me to another landscape—an interior one—vicariously living a different expression of human nature, the different courage of another struggle to be.

[Lizzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some books that just don’t work as an audiobook. There were passages and ideas and themes in this book that I really enjoyed, but it was so clearly written to be read, to be digested and understood at your own pace, to be able to reread passages, to see where one section ends and another begins.

Vanishing Monuments follows Alani, a photographer who returns to their childhood home to visit their dying mother. They confront their past, reflect on the importance of memory and identity, and try to find closure.

The writing is undeniable beautiful, but all I wanted to do was go back over certain passages, highlight a section, flick back and forth. The narrative switches between first and second person, which is a fantastic way of distinguishing between the real and the imagined, but doesn’t translate quite as well on an audiobook.

This was a very moving reflection on gender, identity, family, art, and the importance of memory. Hopefully one day soon I’ll get the chance to read it in written form; I feel like I would be able to follow the story much more, and get more out of the experience, if that was the case.

I received a free audiobook for review. All opinions are my own.

[Karen Lowe · Rating 4 out of 5]

The style of very close first person narration, with dives into second person, brings us so close to this narrator. We feel the confusion, the conflicts, the pain that's going on. It's sadness is hard to read sometimes, but the book is brilliant. It's dense and immersive. And set in Winnipeg! Awesome!
Some of the lines in this book are brilliant. I love the choppy narrative, which brings to mind the way my mind works-jumping to ideas that aren't full-blown sentences.

The concept of a memory palace, something to hold your recollections, gave the book a structure, for both the backstory and the present-day events that provoked a lot of memories. An ordinary house can be a monument for a lifetime.

The symbolism of monuments throughout the book were deftly woven and very multi-layered. Loved it. I loved aspects of this book, but had to put it down sometimes when things got sooo deep. A bit better than a 3.5, I thought, until I got to the end. Definitely a 4 star, maybe 4.5 stars. Anyhow, it's worth getting all the way through.

[Trio · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm simply stunned by the beauty of this novel. John Elizabeth Stintzi lays everything bare in Vanishing Monuments. The depth of thought which clearly went into the complex structure of this magnificent story, is rivaled only by the raw and intimate journey the main character shares as they revisit (and say goodbye to) their past.

Just to paraphrase what one of the characters says, "Everyone's childhood home is haunted, and everyone goes back, and it always sucks...". Alani's lifelong quest toward self understanding, their incredible relationships with others, and the surreal experience of opening up the front door after a long absence, is just inspired. Bravo to John Elizabeth Stintzi for this emotional and powerful novel.

The audio version is exquisitely performed by Jo Vannicola. Their understanding of this character, the depth of feeling they impart into their performance... it's just perfect.

thank you to Bespeak Audio Editions and NetGalley for providing me with an audiobook copy of Vanishing Monuments, all opinions are my own

[Mallory Pearson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vanishing Monuments is a beautiful story about identity, and feeling invisible in the face of people who know and love you. It took a long time for me to get into this story but when it finally clicked, it clicked hard. I think this is a book that I would have rather read as a physical book and not an audiobook--while the audio was still gorgeous and the narrator did a fantastic job, there was something about the pacing that made it hard for me to focus. I can tell that there were whole passages I would have highlighted in a physical book as well. Alani is a vulnerable and fascinating character, and I loved the exploration of their identity as a nonbinary person. Their queer friends and relationships were so fulfilling to see and it's clear that the author put so much emotional quality into this story.

[Risa · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

This is a story about gender and identity, but it’s also about art, bodies, family, friendship, love, home, relationships, and so much more. Given the subject matter, the book was bound to be heartbreaking in some ways, but I loved the ending- it’s hopeful instead of devastating. The writing itself is beautiful; I kept finding myself wanting to write down lines of prose so that I would remember them. I’ll buy a print copy or two once the book is released- right now, I’m thinking I want one for myself and one for my classroom. The writer definitely has a way with words, and I’ll be looking forward to more work from them in the future.

An ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Lars Conner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Vanishing Monuments by John Elizabeth Stintzi - 2/5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Bespeak Audio Editions for access to an free copy of this audiobook. I am leaving this unbiased review independently.

This book had some beautiful prose and is an exceptional introspective on both gender and memory and how those intersect. However, for mer personally, that would be interesting to ready for an essay, not an entire novel. If there is a plot present, I was unable to discern it. It seemed as though 3 stories were being told in parallel, none in chronological order.

I'm sure there are many that will enjoy this book very much, I'm just not one of them.

[Woo Yi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is so real to me that it parallels my own life. I have a friend who is a photographer whose mother is going through dementia and has a nonbinary child. I feel that this would be a good book to share with them. As a first book, Stintzi has made an amazing debut, and I look forward to whatever else the author decides to write. It's a book by an artist for an artist. If I were to describe it as a color, I'd call it sepia. The only challenge for me was keeping track of the time, as the book is not in chronological order.

[Maheen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dnf.
The last time I put down a book without finishing it was maybe 30 years ago. But this one --I tried and tried to get into it, until finally, about 90 pages in, I just couldn't take it anymore. Ess's story seemed to be interesting, but not the narrator's. And there were just too many pages in between to keep me engaged. With the abundance of excellent books by new authors available, I didn't think this was worth struggling with.

[Laura Sackton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really wanted to love this, but almost nothing happens in the whole novel. It felt like 95% exposition. There were almost no scenes, the entire book was mostly the narrator remembering scenes, or reflecting. Sometimes this kind of novel works for me, but in this case I found it really hard to connect with.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Half of me loves and adores the exquisite, almost hypnotic prose style of this novel...the writing it absolutely beautiful. The other half of me is screaming at the protagonist to "get a hold of yourself and pull yourself together" amidst a story that feels relentlessly, endlessly grim. This 3 star rating splits the difference of my two halves.

[Lillian Poulsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written narrative following a non-binary person as they begin understanding their identity and grappling with their dying mother. I really enjoyed listening to this, but I think reading a physical copy might have been more impactful for me. Regardless, really well written and highly recommend.

[Chade66 · Rating 1 out of 5]

In the first chapter there were more em dashes than I have used in my whole life. Three on one page. The main character drops their life, runs off to Canada to check on their mother, stands behind her then runs away without saying anything. Just couldn't connect to the main character.

[Madi · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I was everything, but I wanted to be one simple fucking thing. I was sick of manoeuvring between. I never felt welcome in my body, except for the moments when I did, and by then I didn’t even want to be."