These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart

By Izzy Wasserstein

Book Riot 10 Best Science Fiction Books of 2024

In a queer, noir technothriller of fractured identity and corporate intrigue, a trans woman faces her fear of losing her community as her past chases after her. This bold, thought-provoking debut science-fiction novella from a Lambda Award finalist is an exciting and unpredictable look at the fluid nature of our former and present selves.

“With a complex and enjoyably flawed trans protagonist and a portrayal of queer life that goes deeper than casual representation, this marks Wasserstein as a voice to watch out for in LGBTQ science fiction.” —Publishers Weekly

In mid-21st-century Kansas City, Dora hasn’t been back to her old commune in years. But when Dora’s ex-girlfriend Kay is killed, and everyone at the commune is a potential suspect, Dora knows she’s the only person who can solve the murder.

As Dora is dragged back into her old community and begins her investigations, she discovers that Kay’s death is only one of several terrible incidents. A strange new drug is circulating. People are disappearing. And Dora is being attacked by assailants from her pre-transition past.

Meanwhile, It seems like a war between two nefarious corporations is looming, and Dora’s old neighborhood is their battleground. Now she must uncover a twisted conspiracy, all while navigating a deeply meaningful new relationship.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tachyon Publications
• Release date: Mar 12, 2024
• ISBN: 9781616964139

Book preview

Praise for These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart

Kirkus Pick: Spring 2024 Top-10 SF Fantasy & Horror

"A queer anarchist commune in near-future Kansas City is threatened by corporate espionage in this fun and well-paced neo-noir cyberpunk adventure from Wasserstein (All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From). Theodora ‘Dora’ Madsen lives in ‘self-imposed exile’ from the commune she once called home, but when her ex-girlfriend, Kay, is found dead of an apparent overdose, Dora, suspicious, is compelled to investigate. Now an outsider to the tight-knit community, her investigations raise echoes of the conflict that led to her departure, and call into question the very principles on which the commune was founded. Can Dora discover the truth without tearing apart the community that sheltered her when she needed it most—and before someone else gets hurt? Wasserstein makes clever use of genre tropes, including clones, snappy noir-style dialogue, and the damaged, insomniac detective archetype. With a complex and enjoyably flawed trans protagonist and a portrayal of queer life that goes deeper than casual representation, this marks Wasserstein as a voice to watch out for in LGBTQ science fiction."

—Publishers Weekly

With an anarchist’s eye for flipping all the old tropes, Wasserstein makes her propulsive, stylish cyberpunk murder mystery sing on every page. Dora defines her own story, and it’s absolutely engrossing.

—Karen Osborne, author of Architects of Memory

This fast-paced novella blends a pitch-perfect noir voice with all the excitement and grit of an action movie, but at its core, it is ultimately a tale of community, identity, and connection. Izzy Wasserstein is a true and tender storyteller with a head for twisty plots and a heart for complex love.

—Emma Törzs, author of Ink Blood Sister Scribe

Izzy Wasserstein has given us something we need, as only she can: a story about surviving the near-future hellscape that makes you want to survive the present hellscape. I know I'll be reading it again before long.

—Elly Bangs, author of Unity

"These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart is an absorbing near future science-fiction novella that explores themes of identity and family with a keen eye for character and a central mystery that unfolds in unexpected ways. Izzy Wasserstein is a gifted writer, and this is a wonderful debut."

—Josh Rountree, author of The Legend of Charlie Fish

This wise novella asks compelling questions about anarchism, community, self-determination, and consent, while allowing its trans and queer characters the full range of their flawed, messy humanity. Just like all of Izzy Wasserstein’s work, this story is complex, well-written, and heartfelt.

—Natalia Theodoridou, World Fantasy Award winner and Nebula finalist

"[These Fragile Graces] does not give easy answers, but instead urges us to remember: the moment we lose sight of love—for our communities and for ourselves—is the moment we risk harming everything we hold dear."

—Naseem Jamnia, author of the Crawford-, Locus-, and World Fantasy-nominated novella The Bruising of Qilwa

A fast-paced post-cyberpunk thriller that starts with a murder at an anarchist commune in Kansas City, and explores both the far-reaching and the intimately personal consequences. Read it, get immersed in the investigation, then find yourself thinking for a long while afterward.

—Bogi Takács, editor of Transcendent 2: The Year's Best Transgender Speculative Fiction

Also by Izzy Wasserstein

All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From (2022)

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These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart

These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart

Copyright © 2024 by Izzy Wasserstein

This is a work of fiction. All events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form without the express permission of the author and the publisher.

Interior and cover design by Elizabeth Story

Author photo copyright © by Huascar Medina

Tachyon Publications LLC

1459 18th Street #139

San Francisco, CA 94107

415.285.5615

www.tachyonpublications.com

[e-mail]

Series editor: Jacob Weisman

Editor: Jaymee Goh

Print ISBN: 978-1-61696-412-2

Digital ISBN: 978-1-61696-413-9

Printed in the United States by Versa Press, Inc.

First Edition: 2024

9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

For my trans family:

those who came before,

those still among us,

& those yet to come.

I hadn’t seen Juan in years, not since I left the commune. When he showed up at my door, struggling to make eye contact, I knew that Kay was dead.

Dora, he said, his hands flexing and releasing at his sides, as if trying to grasp something that wasn’t there. It’s Kay.

An overdose, he explained. They’d found her this morning, unresponsive. I knew it was true, but I couldn’t make sense of it. Not that she used. I knew that. Between illicit drugs and street-brewed versions of the corporate stuff, most people were on something. But she’d always been precise. Careful.

I’m sorry to show up like this, Juan said into the silence. The yard’s distance between us felt like much more. He’d been my closest friend, closer to me than anyone but Kay. Now neither of us knew where to look, where to put our hands. I thought you should know, and I’d heard you live down here, now—

He was apologizing for telling me my ex was dead. Because I’d left, and he’d honored that. Apologizing. I felt ill.

No! I said, too forcefully. No, Juan. Thank you. I’d have hated to find out . . . I almost said too late, my brain refusing to accept facts. Trailed off instead, then blurted out: Can—can I see her?

He flinched, then nodded. Of course, he said. No one would be pleased that I was coming back, including me. I’d made damned sure of that when I left.

I’d sworn never to set foot in the commune again. Kept that vow for years and never thought I’d break it. Never thought I’d outlive Kay, either. I didn’t want to face her body but couldn’t do anything else.

Juan led me to the commune, past apartment buildings, neighborhood chain stores, and the occasional pawn shop and hole-in-the-wall restaurant, under the overpass that marked the line between very little wealth and none. Late October, and the heat made every step cost. When I’d last seen the old neighborhood, it had been lively. Elders at their windows or on stoops seeking relief from the heat, dealers on the corners, children playing wherever they could find shade. Things between the neighborhood and the commune were occasionally tense, sure, but there’d been a community here, people who knew one another, looked out for one another. And predators, like in any community. But a real neighborhood, in spite or because of poverty and oppression.

I’d missed this place. My current apartment was okay, best I could hope for, really. Reasonably safe, no big pest problems, even my own bathroom. But people in that neighborhood were clinging to the middle-class life their parents had. Something close to it, anyway. No one there looked out for one another. I’d never spoken to most of my neighbors. Kids didn’t play in the streets. The desolation of the suburbs, recreated.

The old neighborhood had felt so alive. Now it was a ghost town. No one was out on the stoops, no faces in windows hoping for a breeze. One person on a corner bolted as soon as they saw us. The quiet put me on edge. Where had everyone gone?

The front of the commune was a patchwork of red brick and plywood. Two guards on the doorway—so the commune wasn’t entirely ignoring security—were teens, maybe a decade younger than us. They looked at me with mild curiosity. The taller of the two said something in Tagalog and the other guard giggled and not-so-subtly shushed their comrade.

I was already one of the clueless older folks to them. When had that happened?

Were we ever that young? I asked Juan. His shoulders slumped; his eyes were caves.

Not that long ago, Dora, he said. Don’t think he believed it.

He knocked. A bolt clicked and the interior door opened. The common room was as I remembered it, once a restaurant for the rich, scarred and plastered over, furnished with scavenged and handmade tables and chairs. Seemed like the whole crew was there, clustered in small groups. At first, our arrival was greeted with vague interest. Then someone whispered my name, and tension rippled across the room. Someone I didn’t know called their kid over, clutched them tight. Soon every eye

Reviews for These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart

[macha_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

this is a very slight example of a recent craze of detective sf novellas. i like the trend, and keep looking for more. this one is thrown together into a madcap pot that offers up a near-future dystopic Earth, a post-cyberpunk background, a neo-noir style, trans characters, and a cast of anarchists. and then it stirs all of this together and brings on the clones. i'm not opposed to the hash that results, and i'd be happy to read the next one from this new author, but i would prefer an investment in some growth to make it somewhat less slight, just because i think she can and something a bit more ambitious would make its fun even funner.

[richardderus · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Publisher Says: In a queer, noir technothriller of fractured identity and corporate intrigue, a trans woman faces her fear of losing her community as her past chases after her. This bold, thought-provoking debut science-fiction novella from a Lambda Award finalist is an exciting and unpredictable look at the fluid nature of our former and present selves.

In mid-21st-century Kansas City, Dora hasn’t been back to her old commune in years. But when Dora’s ex-girlfriend Kay is killed, and everyone at the commune is a potential suspect, Dora knows she’s the only person who can solve the murder.

As Dora is dragged back into her old community and begins her investigations, she discovers that Kay’s death is only one of several terrible incidents. A strange new drug is circulating. People are disappearing. And Dora is being attacked by assailants from her pre-transition past.

Meanwhile, it seems like a war between two nefarious corporations is looming, and Dora’s old neighborhood is their battleground. Now she must uncover a twisted conspiracy, all while navigating a deeply meaningful new relationship.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: There are some tropes in the noir genre I love more than others. One is the private dick with a complicated love history. Rick and Elsa in Casablanca. Marlowe and Ruth in The Maltese Falcon. Jake and Evelyn (and her daddy) in Chinatown. Walter Neff and Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity. Not one tiny shred of honest, forthright communication and commitment to any relationship's future in the lot. This being my deeply cynical belief about the reality of all marriages' basis and fates, I thought I'd got a solid bead on the way the genre will work on this topic.

Laddies and gentlewomen, Izzy Wasserstein blew the (closet) doors off this one.

Dora, our protagonist, lives in a deeply dysfunctional dystopian near-future (a couple decades) post-apocalyptic USA. We don't explore the apocalypse much, just live day-to-day with Dora...Theodora, né Theodore...as she tries to survive in the wreckage of hypercapitalism. She (chosen pronoun) spent years in a hardscrabble anarchist commune with her pretransition Theodore-self's lover and commune co-founder, Kay. The pair split up, and Dora left the commune, over Kay and the others' rejection of her desire to tighten the commune's security about new members and the commune's handling of data. The others felt it was not in the spirit of the effort to be so closed and paranoid; she did. So she closed the door behind her on the way out. Maybe slammed is fairer; maybe slammed the damn door so hard it splintered, even.

And now Dora has to return to the commune, using all her skills acquired while she was Theodore, to solve the murder of Kay. Why was Kay murdered? What did Dora tell the communards about security? Is this thing on? So begins a fast-lane tour of the hellscape that is Kansas City in this deeply divided world, as Dora ferrets out facts and confronts Big Bads. Naturally, there are ties in the story Dora unfolds to the Theodore past...and, not coincidentally, Dora is confronted with the cruelest, most cinema-friendly enemies imaginable: clones of Theodore.

This, then, is the heart of the story. The world, and the world-building, are not deep because you're not here for the wrapping paper but for the gift. Dora has to battle Theodore-faced enemies bound and determined to kill her! Can there be anything more visually appealing than that?! Can the cruelty of deadnaming be more bluntly portrayed?

I really doubt it can. The setup, the story, the world...all part of the point of the read: Identity, its power, its costs, and the sheer nightmarish house of mirrors the trans person must live with, and through, simply to claim what cisgender people walk around blissfully unaware that they possess.

Themselves. Their unquestioned selfhood, unimpacted by the feelings, opinions, judgments of others, unquestioned by the self-appointed guardians of...you know, I just don't know what they are guarding. No one's attacking my maleness by being transmasc or transfem. What needs guarding about that? Anyway, I exist in a bubble of privileges of many sorts, and reading books like this that take me into the unprivileged side of my life do me a gigantic service. Perspective is something I treasure, even when I don't unreservedly enjoy getting it.

I did not read the book with unalloyed pleasure. There'd be a fifth star on my rating had that been the case. I enjoyed the pace; the author starts fast and doesn't slow down. I enjoyed the message; see above. I was squirmy about the echoes of The Man Who Folded Himself. That wasn't unnecessary; but I had to read the author's Afterword to get why it was not gratuitous. I was a bit unconvinced by the Big Bad's motivation. Not eyerollingly so, but in that niggly little itch that says, "really? all this because of that?"

I default back to, readers aren't here for just one experience, just one focus, a single reward for their time spent in Dora's world. It's just a thing I felt vaguely unsatisfied by, and should try to explain to others in advance of their reads.

I think Author Izzy deserves your afternoon and evening to get this involving story into you. I'm glad it's in me now.