Synopses & Reviews
One of Billboard’s “100 Greatest Music Books of All Time”
The provocative transgender advocate and lead singer of the punk rock band Against Me! provides a searing account of her search for identity and her true self.
It began in a bedroom in Naples, Florida, when a misbehaving punk teenager named Tom Gabel, armed with nothing but an acoustic guitar and a headful of anarchist politics, landed on a riff. Gabel formed Against Me! and rocketed the band from its scrappy beginnings — banging on a drum kit made of pickle buckets — to a major-label powerhouse that critics have called this generation's The Clash. Since its inception in 1997, Against Me! has been one of punk's most influential modern bands, but also one of its most divisive. With every notch the four-piece climbed in their career, they gained new fans while infuriating their old ones. They suffered legal woes, a revolving door of drummers, and a horde of angry, militant punks who called them "sellouts" and tried to sabotage their shows at every turn.
But underneath the public turmoil, something much greater occupied Gabel — a secret kept for 30 years, only acknowledged in the scrawled-out pages of personal journals and hidden in lyrics. Through a troubled childhood, delinquency, and struggles with drugs, Gabel was on a punishing search for identity. Not until May of 2012 did a Rolling Stone profile finally reveal it: Gabel is a transsexual, and would from then on be living as a woman under the name Laura Jane Grace.
Tranny is the intimate story of Against Me!'s enigmatic founder, weaving the narrative of the band's history, as well as Grace's, with dozens of never-before-seen entries from the piles of journals Grace kept. More than a typical music memoir about sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll — although it certainly has plenty of that — Tranny is an inside look at one of the most remarkable stories in the history of rock.
Review
"In this riveting and at times harrowing biography, Grace recounts in unflinching detail her path to self-realization....[a] brutally honest, soul-searching memoir." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
"A full-length tell-all about Grace's lifelong journey to discovering, accepting, and at last publicly acknowledging her true identity." Harper's Bazaar, Best Books of November
Review
"Grace and co-writer Dan Ozzi spin green room drama and rock star recklessness into a gem of a rock bio that belongs on a shelf alongside Hammer of the Gods and Get in the Van." Paste Magazine, Best Nonfiction Books of 2016
About the Author
Laura Jane Grace is a transgender musician best known as the founder, lead singer, songwriter and guitarist of the punk rock band Against Me!. Since coming out as transgender in a 2012 interview with
Rolling Stone magazine, she has become an outspoken advocate for transgender awareness. She has a daughter and lives in Chicago.
Dan Ozzi is a New York-based writer and has served as the editor of VICE's music site, Noisey.