Publisher's Synopsis
What happens when you throw away everything that you have to become everything that you are? Told through a combination of comic patter and heart-felt exposition, "Blowing Up Rachel" tells the story of one person's relentless embrace of change, her resolute pursuit of self-actualization and how she succeeded in coming out on the other side, despite the shambles those choices often made of her life and her relationships. It is at various times poignant, raw, challenging, playful, politically incorrect, deeply personal and unflinchingly honest. Through a combination of compassion, wry self-deprecation and a biting sense of humor Rachel Stevens tells the story of her journey from near typical child of the fifties to Marine Corps officer and successful trial lawyer, from husband and father to inveterate vagabond, slot-casino cashier, small-town vegan cook, artist and writer. It is a story of resilience and heartbreak and hope and absurdity and the thousand little things that shape and color a life inexorably moving toward the realization of a re-shaped identity. In it one sees the intimate truth of one person's transgender journey, not the stereotypical or the politically correct, but the rich and insightful and unexpected revelations of a life finding its place in the curious middle.
