By Shelbie Music
Philosophy, poetry, science, geography, history, linguistics—these all combine in Vivian Blaxell’s hybrid collection of personal essays, Worthy of the Event (LittlePuss Press, 2025). Wide-ranging in its intellect and guiding us across multiple countries, the book sweeps readers into Blaxell’s life as a trans woman growing up in the second half of the 20th Century, and gazes upon the people, relationships, places, and memories that have informed the identity and outlook she has today. Skillfully engaging with various authors and disciplines, Blaxell uses their work as foundations for her own, forming an evocative collection that focuses on disparate topics, yet revolves around the central theme of becoming and being. When has one “become”? Is “becoming” a perpetual state? And more importantly, how does one become worthy of an event, brave in the face of the onslaught of our world? Worthy of the Event seeks to answer these monumental, incessant questions with a sharp intellect and an open, beating, bloody heart.
Though Blaxell has publicly expressed reservations about the genre of memoir and about the possibility of accurately reconstructing memories, this book would seem to be an act of unreserved honesty. The first essay in the collection, “the disappointments,” gives readers a blazing introduction into what’s to come: “My vagina disappoints me. There, I’ve said it now.” This is only one example of the rawness Blaxell gives readers in her reflections on her “events,” taking readers on a personal journey through her mind. Blaxell also invites us to explore the various ways she has learned to express herself through writing. She pulls from the works of classical philosophy and literature (Homer, Sappho, Kafka, Stein, and more) to build a foundation for her work, and through this readers grow to be well acquainted with Blaxell’s creative process and vision. We learn precisely what Blaxell finds fascinating and how she derives lessons on “becoming,” and “worthiness of the event.” Not only does Worthy of the Event incorporate many different schools of thought, Blaxell includes a variety of different type fonts and poetic forms throughout the collection, creating a kinetic energy in her work that propels readers along rhythmically. The prose picks us up, carries us through, and (at times) drops us off—jarring but never boring—every sentence counting—structure, phonetics, fonts, and all.
A personal favorite essay of mine is “indifferent to prayer.” Summarizing the essay is impossible; it’s built on tightly knit historical recollections, personal experiences, stories, stray thoughts, quotes, lines of poetry, scientific ephemera—you name it, “indifferent to prayer” has got it. Still, Blaxell highlights the underbelly of trans life of the 60s and 70s in this essay; the horrific, mind-numbing grief, the sharp bite of fury in the face of powerlessness, the omnipresence of death.
One section of “indifferent to prayer” features an honest reflection on colonialism by Blaxell, where she opens with a fierce directness: “We colonizers find it hard to say we did it” (181). She explores how disease was used as a weapon against Indigenous people who had been, and continue to be, displaced and killed by colonization. Blaxell provides candid meditations on the atrocities we commit towards one another in the name of power and conquest, and how she is ignorant to the true horrors of colonialism due to being so irrevocably tied up in a colonially built society that rewards her (outright or furtively) for reaping the benefits of her inherent white privilege. Blaxell writes: “I understand it—empire, colonialism, domination—yet even though I grew up right next to it and I saw the consequences, I saw the consequences without feeling the consequences” (184). Blaxell’s intersectional identity plays a role in her experience with colonialism as well: “I didn’t get the message about my having and how my having entailed others not having. That not getting the message might be something to do with the not-having-ness of transsexual woman existence where my privileges are as contingent as my beauties” (184). Blaxell considers how place, privilege, and identity are all subject to one another at any given place in time, and how her own self-described “not-having-ness” contributes to her understanding of the “not-having-ness” of others.
Though things are admittedly bleak thus far in “indifferent to prayer,” for every action there is an equal reaction; for all bad there must be good. “indifferent to prayer” features Blaxell recalling countless stories, conversations, and memories shared among friends, lovers, and wise coworkers (if Miss Sybil Fontaine, the late-forties “coworker” who is unafraid to tell “you fucking queens” that no good comes from “jumping through square people’s hoops” (167), could be called that). These interactions illustrate one of life’s greatest paradoxes: the greatest things happen when one is unafraid in the face of uncertainty—on both a personal and existential level. Blaxell reflects on various terror-inspiring moments of life, the good and the bad, and how we reach out to a God to aid us through these “terrors.” Blaxell ends the essay pointedly: “Let us begin to live as being uncontained by the circumstances of our existence, and no matter how hard, how terrifying our disasters and our loves, let us be people who do not need and do not seek heavenly consolations” (199).
Every page of Blaxell’s prose offers a brand-new thought to chew away at for the rest of the day. Blaxell recalls her life with an edge, humor, and wit I have never experienced before in an author’s prose—Blaxell breaks the rules, but she does so while telling you exactly why the rules were put in place and how breaking them was really the only option. Blaxell’s intelligence and experience drip from the page as readers intensely follow along the winding path that is Worthy of the Event. This hybrid collection of personal essays has taught me one thing above all else: it hurts because I am human and that is terrifying yet beautiful.
Shelbie Music is an undergraduate student at Ohio University studying English and Psychology and is pursuing a career in secondary education.
New Ohio Review 