Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore + Alexander Chee: Terry Dactyl

Join us for a release event with iconic author and activist Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, discussing her new book Terry Dactyl. Joining Mattilda in conversation is bestselling author Alexander Chee. This event will be hosted in the Strand Book Store's 3rd floor Rare Book Room at 828 Broadway on 12th Street.

Can’t make the event? Purchase a signed copy of Terry Dactyl here.

Masks are strongly encouraged to be worn by attendees at this event.

If you do not have a mask in accordance with CDC guidelines, Strand can provide proper masks at the door.

ACCESSIBILITY:

Strand Book Store is an ADA compliant venue. The event space is accessible via elevator. Please ask a Strand employee upon arrival for directions to accessible seating if preferred.

ASL interpretation is available for this event by request only. Please reach out to our events team at events@strandbooks.com by Nov. 5 to request.

For further information on accessibility in this space, or to make a request, please contact events@strandbooks.com.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

From iconic author and activist Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore comes a breathless search for intimacy and connection, ranging from club culture to the art world, from the AIDS crisis to COVID-19.

Terry Dactyl has lived many lives. Raised by boisterous lesbian mothers in Seattle, she comes of age as a trans girl in the 1980s in a world of dancing queens and late-night house parties just as the AIDS crisis ravages their world. After moving to New York City, Terry finds a new family among gender-bending club kids bonded by pageantry and drugs, fiercely loyal and unapologetic. She lands a job at a Soho gallery, where, after partying all night, she spends her days bringing club culture to the elite art world.

Twenty years later, in a panic during the COVID-19 lockdown, Terry returns to a Seattle stifled by gentrification and pandemic isolation until resistance erupts following the murder of George Floyd, and her search for community ignites once again.

In propulsive, intoxicating prose, Terry Dactyl traces an extraordinary journey from adolescence to adulthood, delivering a vital portrait of queer identity in all its peril and possibility.

Photo credit: Dorothy Edwards

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is the Lambda Literary Award-winning author of seven books, and the editor of six anthologies. Her most recent title, Touching the Art, was a finalist for a Washington State Book Award and a Pacific Northwest Book Award. Her previous title, The Freezer Door, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. Her new novel is Terry Dactyl.

Photo credit M. Sharkey

Alexander Chee is the bestselling author of the novels Edinburgh and The Queen of the Night, and the essay collection How to Write an Autobiographical Novel. A Guggenheim Fellow and a recipient of a Whiting Award, he is a contributing editor at The New Republic and an editor at large at VQR. He is a full professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College and lives in Vermont.