We’re absolutely thrilled to be hosting the Manchester launch of Grace Lavery’s PLEASE MISS: A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING PENIS – an incredible, genre-defying memoir of gender transition and recovery from addiction which is unlike anything you’ve ever read before. Grace will be in conversation with Andrew McMillan.

About the book:

Grace Lavery is a reformed druggie, an unreformed omnisexual chaos Muppet, and a 100 per cent, all-natural, synthetic female hormone monster. How could her story be straightforward when she is anything but? The telling of her tale is kaleidoscopic, wild and audacious: Grace performs in a David Lynch remake of Sunset Boulevard and is reprogrammed as a 1960s femmebot; she is targeted with anonymous letters from a mysterious cabal of clowns; she writes a socialist manifesto disguised as a porn parody of QI (or is it vice versa?).

As Grace fumbles toward a new trans identity, she tries on dozens of different voices, creating a coat of many colours. The result is dazzling, unique and unforgettable. Startlingly funny and ruthlessly smart, Please Miss gives us what we came for, then slaps us in the face and orders us to come again.

About the author:

Grace Lavery is a British writer, editor and academic living in Brooklyn, NY. As an Associate Professor of English, Critical Theory, and Gender & Women’s Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, her research explores the history and theory of aesthetics and interpretation, with particular interests in psychoanalysis, literary realism, and queer and trans cultures.

Doors: 18.30, event starts: 18.45

Tickets are £3.00 or free when pre-ordering a copy of the book. PLEASE MISS will also be available to purchase on the night and Grace will be signing copies after the talk. If you would like a signed copy but cannot make the event, please contact us on 0161 274 3331 or manchester@blackwell.co.uk and we can arrange this for you.