A gorgeous novel about what it means to be a flawed and forgivable human being amidst constantly changing social norms.
SOME STRANGE MUSIC DRAWS ME IN
by Griffin Hansbury
W.W. Norton, Fall 2023
(via Sterling Lord Literistic)
In the summer of 1984, teenage Mel becomes entranced with the trans woman who appears in her blue-collar American town. Through the world-expanding time she spends with the woman, Sylvia, and the changes of adolescence, Mel soon discovers she is not the girl she thought she was—in fact, she might not be a girl at all. In the wake of this revelation, Mel navigates gender, sexuality, and an intense friendship with her childhood best friend in a hostile time and place for both girls and queers.
Moving back and forth to 2019, Mel has become Max, a middle-aged trans man. He returns to his hometown in the wake of his mother’s death, still reeling from his own politically-incorrect, gender-related scandal at his workplace, and bearing the burden of guilt from that pivotal teenage summer. As he reunites with his wayward older sister, spends time with his preteen great-niece and reckons with his past, Max works to come to terms with what it means to be a flawed and forgivable human being amidst constantly changing social norms.
Griffin Hansbury is the acclaimed author of Vanishing New York (Dey Street, 2017), based on the celebrated blog written under the pen name Jeremiah Moss. As Hansbury he is the author of The Nostalgist, a novel, and Day For Night, a collection of poems. A two-time NYFA fellow, his writing has appeared in n+1, The New York Times, The New York Daily News, and online for The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, The Village Voice, Salon, and The New York Review of Books.
Since her acclaimed novel 
“
Mistake number one: Fun-loving Jake tells his girlfriend Jessica that they have to go to Tegan’s end of summer party in their tiny California beach town. Jessica doesn’t like parties and she doesn’t like Tegan, who has an obvious, obsessive crush on Jake. But Jessica agrees to go, to make Jake happy. 
Twelve years after the events of House of Salt and Sorrows, the Thaumas sisters are scattered across Arcannia. Camille rules over Highmoor as an efficient duchess. Annaleigh, Keeper of the Light, runs Old Maude with husband Cassius. Lenore is long gone, wandering throughout Arcannia. Honor is a governess in Foresia and Mercy lives at court, a companion to the two princesses. Despite dreams of adventures, almost-eighteen year old Verity has remained at Highmoor. She has no memory of the tragic events or her part within them. She spends her days filling hundreds of sketchbooks and canvases with portraits and paintings. Unfortunately, not all her subjects are alive. Verity is still seeing ghosts, she just doesn’t know it. When Mercy sends word that the Duchess of Bloem is interested in having Verity paint a portrait of her son, Alexander, Verity jumps at the chance. Verity is also quickly drawn to Alexander Laurent. Though a childhood accident left him without the use of his legs, Alexander roams the estate in a wicker wheelchair, taking Verity on adventurous and romantic outings as they grow closer. When he proposes she joyfully accepts. Even the constant revelry can’t hold back a new series of nightmares from plaguing Verity. She longs to confide in Alex but finds him much changed since the engagement. When she spots him walking through the halls of Chauntilalie one night, she fears that nothing is as it seems.