Myra Breckinridge: A Novel (Myra and Myron, Book 1) (Unabridged‪)‬

Michelle Hendley is outstanding

Michelle Hendley gives the best performance of any audiobook I’ve heard with “Myra Breckinridge.” I’m so happy to see that she has also performed the sequel to “Myra,” “Myron,” which is also available here. I’m so glad that Brilliance Audio cast a young trans actress to read this story, particularly as the entire novel is written in first-person, mostly as Myra but often as the antagonist, the older cisgender heterosexual male character Buck Loner. Hendley does an outstanding job as both, as well as every other character with dialogue, with impressive distinction and delivery. “Myra” seems to be flying under the radar as an under-appreciated pioneering work for queer literature. I first became familiar with the novel and film more than 20 years ago, and now working and living in Hollywood in an era of the #MeToo movement and unprecedented trans representation, “Myra” feels more relevant than ever. It’s impossible not to wonder if some of the satire of this work lies in questioning how shocking or extraordinary any of the events in this book (particularly sexual events) would be if the protagonist were a cisgender heterosexual man, and their victim a cisgender heterosexual women. I myself live and work in West Hollywood and have worked in entertainment here in LA, and it’s a lot of fun too how many of the references to Hollywood (and much of what is now WeHo) are still standing and still relevant and popular these 50+ years later after this book was written. The forward by Camille Puglia is also excellent and sets the stage to wonder in what perspectives Myra’s philosophies and dispositions were Gore Vidal’s own, as suggested in the forward by Christopher Isherwood. In a post-“Pose” world, “Myra Breckinridge” is certainly in a historic league of its own for trans/queer fiction ,and completely entertaining to this day with much thanks to Hendley.