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embarked on, a profession or a hobby, but the
5
conversation inevitably and quickly devolved
into a debate about the meaning of second
cousins versus first cousins once removed. We
never settled that debate, nor did I ever learn
Narrative
any solid information about my relatives or my
family’s past. Carrie Brownstein, “Disappearance,” from Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl, copyright © 2015 by Carrie Brownstein. Used by permission of Riverhead, an imprint of Penguin Publishing
These convivial but otherwise circuitous 15 Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
talks are likely why my dad’s brother, Uncle
Mike, often stepped up as the family storyteller
and entertainer. When I was younger, my uncle
was a thrice-married plastic surgeon (he’s now
with his fourth wife, my aunt Denise) who had This is a picture of Brownstein and her dog,
become one of the first and foremost sexual Buffy, which she included in her narrative with
reassignment surgeons in America, special- this caption: “After I was given my first camera
izing in top surgery for female-to-male trans- I set up many photo shoots. Here I am posing
gender people. He was also — and still is — a atop my baby blanket with an asymmetrical
haircut, my Cabbage Patch Kid, a Snugglebum
life member of the NRA as well as a benefactor toy, and my dog, Buffy.”
member, and he has voted conservative in Based on what you know about the family,
every major election. He was passionate about why do you think she included this specific
all of it despite how strange this combination of picture?
traits might have appeared to others. A typical
Thanksgiving involved him . . . trying to explain
the notion of “transgender” to a great-aunt is where he developed an interest in collecting
who resembled a drag queen, her bony fingers firearms and going to the shooting range. The
drenched in costume jewelry clicking like a tap grandkids loved to pose for pictures on the back-
shoe routine as she gestured, hands flying up yard brick patio, the bright orange Tucson sun
in the air to emphasize her bewilderment. One and cactus-covered landscape behind us, our
Thanksgiving my sister and cousin and I played unloaded weapons pointed at the camera or,
catch with a silicone breast implant my uncle more likely, right at each other.
had lying around, while the movie Scarface Though my family didn’t talk much to one
played on the TV in the background. Another another, we did talk about one another. My dad’s
Thanksgiving, my grandmother sat at the din- parents would refer to their daughter-in-law
ing table with taut skin and visible staples in as “her” or “she,” talking as if my mother were
her head from a recent facelift courtesy of one invisible even though she sat right there at the
son, while the other son carved into the turkey table. “Does she ever eat?” they would say to my
with an electric knife. father. “Does she know how skinny she looks?” I
Our family liked to focus on activities suppose we were better observers than commu-
instead of communication, so when we weren’t nicators; we were all subjects to be worried over,
tossing around fake breasts or staging photos of complained about, even adored, but never quite
relatives snorting flour off the counter to look people to be held or loved. There was an intel-
like cocaine, we got the guns out. When my lectual, almost absurd distance.
grandfather retired from medicine, he and my The ways that oddity and detachment inter-
grandmother moved to Tucson, Arizona, which sected in the family might best be summed up
206
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