The Rib Joint

“This dazzling writer has created a guidebook for growing up queer in the American South . . . a testament to human endurance and dignity.” —Nick White, author of Sweet & Low Growing up in a small town in the South, Julia and her childhood best friend Laura know the church as well as they know each other’s bodies—the California-shaped scar on Julia’s right knee, the tapered thinness of Laura’s fingers, the circumference of each other’s ponytails. When Laura’s family moves away in middle scho