Refuse

Refuse by Elliott DeLine is the story of a 22 year old female-to-male-transsexual named Dean and his would-be love affair with his college roommate, another trans man with a girlfriend and a successful indie rock band. It is an autobiographical novel and fictional memoir with many references to classic literature and the English alternative rock band The Smiths. It was a finalist for the 2011 LGBT Rainbow Awards. “Elliott DeLine is an ambitious, witty, self-deprecating, thoughtful writer whose debut novel Refuse could meaningfully be compared to the work of Dennis Cooper (with far less violence), Brett Easton Ellis (with far fewer chemical substances), David Sedaris (with not as many belly laughs) and Leslie Feinberg (with a much less mournful air). Conversant with the queer coming-of-age narrative, the disaffected-youth novel and the transgender memoir—as well as the feminist and gender theory that each of these literary genres has inspired—DeLine pushes back against the familiar, and safe, conventions of these sources to produce a captivating story populated by fully rendered, completely believable characters who, while not always likable, and never the objects of pity, somehow manage to make an affective claim on the reader. With this as his debut effort, DeLine, not yet out of college, is a writer to watch.” -Out in Print Queer Book Reviews “Refuse is a stunning debut “novoir” about an over-observant young outsider with really great hair who is outside everything – including the transgender community – but keeps a great deal bottled up inside. Funny, cynical, tough, vulnerable, honest, deluded, sagacious, self-loving and self-loathing, Refuse is irresistible.” -Mark Simpson, author of Saint Morrissey