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3.5/5
Non-Fiction
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Rating: 1/5
Pages: 400
Started: 27 November 2023
Finished: 6 December 2023
Summary:
Sissy Henkshaw was born with unnaturally large thumbs, thumbs which make every regular hand function distinctly difficult--except for hitchhiking. Sissy Henkshaw is a hitchhiking prodigy, a talent which she frequently uses to travel the state, the country, the world. Her hitchhiking prowess takes her to New York City, where she meets The Countess and becomes a model for his line of feminine hygiene products, and Julian, her husband. Her unusually large thumbs also take her to the Rubber Rose Ranch, a health spa ranch run by a chaotic group of cowgirls, where she meets Bonanza Jellybean, an effervescent cowgirl, as well as a Japanese hermit doubly mislabeled by slur normally used to derogatorily refer to Chinese people. She engages in various sexual relations with both of them. The book comes to a head when the cowgirls take possession of the final fifty whooping cranes in the world, and find themselves in a face-off with the FBI.
Thoughts:
It is unsurprising that this book was written by a white man on LSD in the 70s. The constant casual racism (Sissy's obsession with Indigenous people, the moniker used to refer to the hermit, etc.) alone is hard to take, not to mention the sexism and uncomfortable sexualization, the homophobia, and the sheer volume of pointless, overly self-important philosophical mansplaining. This book was so absurd it was hard to follow at points, so absurd it entirely left the realm of charm and I don't think a single important thing happened in the entire middle third of the novel.
I have seen reviews of this book praising it as a feminist or disability-embracing novel, and I suppose there are ways in which that is true. Sissy certainly embraces her large thumbs, and regrets the surgery she eventually gets to bring one of them to a more typical size. There are also lots of autonomous women who have sex with each other, which does technically fit with the general message of 1970s feminism. However, at loss for a better word, I can only describe all of these so-called representations gross. Sissy is a sexual object, who claims in the first few pages that she doesn't mind if the man she's hitchhiking with sexually assaults her, so long as the car doesn't stop moving. The first woman that Sissy chooses to have sex with (there is a woman prior to that, but it is not consensual) is killed off, and the second ultimately chooses to leave the Ranch to find a man to marry so she can be complete. Furthermore, Sissy's limb difference is more of a plot device and a comic bit than an example of disability acceptance.
There were a few parts of this book that were a bit charming in their absurdity and randomness, but the flaws thoroughly overshadowed any merits. Anyone considering reading this book should be warned that the combination of bigotry and capriciousness may leave them stunned and/or horrified.