Still Life by Katherine Packert Burke is an introspective narrative that explores themes of intertextuality, change, queer relationships, and family. The main narratorial thread oscillates between pre and post transition of the protagonist, Edith, and how this changes her outlook on life and the treatment she receives. Edith is a writer playing with the autofiction genre; she becomes motivated to write her second novel about the death of her trans girlfriend, Val, and the surprising wedding between her ex and a cis man.
I thought this novel was highly ambitious with important contemporary themes weaved between past and present. I often became lost in the sporadic time jumps because of the stream-of-consciousness writing style. I would have preferred these to take place over separate chapters.
Overall this was a great read and I would recommend this book to anyone interested in these themes.

Edith is a trans writer living in Texas, and her life is a bit of a mess. With her ex-girlfriend marrying a cis guy, her writing stalled, and her best friend Val suddenly and tragically dead, something’s gotta give.

It’s rare that I read autofiction and think that the author and I would probably be homies, so that’s a big win for Burke, because I am actually the arbiter of taste. This is to say that I generally liked Edith and the other characters; they felt very real and honest. Once we move beyond characters to plot, however, it just kind of meanders. Nothing really happens, which is not always a bad thing, but it felt difficult to trace Edith’s internal journey until the very end. I wasn’t even sure what her (to borrow theatre language) superobjective was until like 70% of the way through the book, and I had to reframe the rest of the novel through that lens. This book probably would’ve been better as a play and a collection of essays, but it wasn’t unenjoyable. 3 out of 5 Sondheim musicals.

What might otherwise seem like a conventional novel (someone in their 20s, drifting, returning to a place of their youth) is elevated tremendously by Burke's sentences, and the vivid dynamics amongst the many characters. The opening paragraph hooked me, and I remained enthralled for the remainder of the novel. Thanks to the publisher for the egalley.

I absolutely loved this. Super happy to see trans women in this new ‘sad women in their 20s’ trend. beautiful writing and i absolutely love when protagonists are writers and it gets meta. incredible and i absolutely recommend to everyone

On my first attempt reading Still Life, I gave up after 50 or so pages as I found it stylistically off-putting - the dialogue in italics, it not always being clear who's talking, the time jumps back and forth. However, when I returned to it and tried again, I put those issues aside and focused on the material itself, and I found myself absorbed in a raw, heartfelt read.

This work of autofiction explores Edith, a young transwoman's journey of transitioning and her relationships with her 2 ex-girlfriends. Edith feels incredibly real and messy; at times I felt like a voyeur so unfiltered and unfettered is the access to her inner world.

It would be hard to fill Still Life with more heart. Packert Burke is one to watch, she could just do with dropping some of the stylistic formatting choices.

Still Life examines the life of Edith, a trans-woman and the two women she is in relationship with. It is a work of auto-fiction, based in good part on the author's life.
A study of life and the merging of boundaries between gender and sexual activities, friendships, love and the categorization of people.

The story is told in the recent past and the present and I found the shifts didn't always flow and became a bit confused at times.

Still, it is a fascinating piece of auto-fiction with a very topical subject

'You know someone ten years, twelve. You see all the ways they changed. You go on being friends.'

I was lucky to receive an advanced copy of Still Life by Katherine Packert Burke thanks to W W Norton & Co. It was described as a profound and piercing tribute to messy webs of queer friendship and to what is left behind in transition.

I definitely think the book succeeded in celebrating the power of queer friendships – particularly the strength of their fluidity. We follow Edith as she reflects on her friendships, which fluctuate from platonic to romantic and back again in the face of shared grief. They are her anchors as she searches for stability amongst so much change.

The book celebrates the effort it takes to maintain friendships despite geographical, mental or existential barriers. It’s about sharing your life with people who change and grow alongside you, and the importance of having people who remain there for you through it all. While it is a complicated story heavy with grief, identity and depression, it’s also real, loyal, sweet and warm.

Now bear with me while I get nerdy about musical theatre..

The influence of Stephen Sondheim is all over this book. Explicitly, of course, when Edith listens to the soundtracks on repeat and in the parallels drawn between certain Sondheim shows and the characters’ lives but also in the structure of the novel. Like Sondheim, Packert Burke plays with time in the storytelling, blending between the present and past memories in a fluidity that matches the relationships and identities that it describes. It's Sondheim's classic 'content dictates form' mantra in action.

It was interesting to me that Edith leans on Sondheim scores as a coping mechanism, especially Merrily We Roll Along in the first part of the novel. Edith and her friends mirrored Franklin, Charley and Mary and, like the musical, Edith wanted to go back in time to when their friendship was simple, good and balanced rather than the fragmented, lost and unhappy place they are in in the present.

In part two of the novel Edith listened to Into the Woods a lot and while it’s less explicit I think this is symbolic of how lost and scared she is, hiding in the dark woods while everyone else around her is going on a journey in pursuit of their wishes. By writing about the past instead of living in the present, Edith becomes the narrator while her friends progress. There’s also a potential alignment with the Witch as Edith coops up at home in the safety of her little world with Val, scared of the potential harm that’s out there when you show up as yourself in the woods. (I could be extrapolating but the Witch’s transformation may be symbolic of Edith’s transition too).

As we move into part three, Company comes into play (even though it’s only mentioned lightly). Edith starts to show more vulnerability and lets her friends in again, as they move forward with their future plans, they advise her to start participating in life again by moving cities, communicating with them again and finding new goals. Though it’s a short part of the novel, we see Edith complete this journey and we leave her ready to start a new life, open to new feelings and start being alive.

Thinking about Still Life through the Sondheim lens (and listening to those soundtracks alongside) greatly enhanced my reading experience as I found new connections and references. I really enjoyed considering his master works through new modern-day characters. Katherine Packert Burke’s novel speaks to Stephen Sondheim and as he said: ‘the last collaborator is your audience’ so putting it together as a reader made it feel like I was able to complete the collaboration.

Katherine Packert Burke's "Still Life" is a poignant exploration of queer friendship and identity. The novel follows Edith, a trans woman navigating a turbulent life: her career is stalled, her love life is in disarray, and her best friend Val is dead. Through intertwined timelines, Burke captures Edith’s past as a college student pre-transition and her present struggles, painting a vivid picture of messy but profound relationships.

The narrative dives deep into Edith’s connections with Tessa, her ex now marrying a man, and Val, her late trans mentor and lover. Burke's writing shines with raw emotion, though the frequent time jumps can be disorienting. Despite this, the portrayal of Edith’s journey and the intricate dynamics of her friendships is compelling.

Burke’s debut is both a character study and a meditation on transness, queerness, and the complexities of moving between identities. The novel doesn't offer easy resolutions but instead immerses readers in the visceral reality of its characters. "Still Life" is a deeply moving read that will resonate long after the final page.

There's a lot about this book that I really enjoyed, the raw emotional heart of it shines through on every page. The writing itself I found a little difficult; the time jumps without shift in tone make it quite disorienting and difficult to tell where we are occasionally, and that's not necessarily an issue in itself but I did sometimes find myself focusing on context clues to figure out what time period we were in and missing the emotion of the story because of it. I also found the dialogue confusing at times, especially when there were more than 2 people speaking.

Overall, a wonderful debut from a promising author I would love to read more from in future.

Still Life is a novel about a trans woman trying to make sense of her messy life and the realities of queer love and friendship. Edith is trying to write her second novel and trying to deal with the fact out of her two best friends, now both two exes, one is dead and the other is marrying a man. She's returning to Boston for the first time since her transition, and the narrative moves between the present and the past, her friendships and relationships with Valerie and Tessa, and whether Edith can move beyond this tableau she's caught in to some kind of movement forward.

I didn't know what to expect from this novel, but it really hit me hard. It functions as a character study, exploring not just Edith but snatches of Tessa and Valerie as well, a narrative about transness and queerness and the messiness of moving between categories and identities and existences, and a meditation on autofiction and art more generally, even when a lot of that art is Sondheim and Gossip Girl. It can be disorienting to read at times, moving between the 'present' of the novel and the story of the 'past' chronologically, but for me that works, letting the line between past and present bleed together as Edith tries to form her past into a coherent narrative she could turn into a novel.

The book doesn't offer much closure or many answers, but I love how visceral and full of emotion it feels, making me genuinely cry and laugh (I loved Edith complaining she didn't want to have to learn what 100 gecs is). Like another recent novel, Greta and Valdin, Still Life offers a bittersweet look at the joy and messiness of queerness through the three women that made up its central characters, and it is also an exploration of the glimpses of what might've been and how we cannot solely dwell on these. I think I'll be haunted by Edith for a while.

I really wanted to love this but I just ended up completely struggling through it, mostly lost, kind of bored, kind of confused. Conversations seemed to completely change directions mid way through to the point where I thought I'd accidentally skipped a page. Context was rarely given and things would just, happen? Without build up, without explanation. Again, I would feel like I had missed a page or something had been cut out because things would be happening so out of the blue. None of the characters were likeable, they were all either whiny, mean, irritating or annoying. The time jumps had no rhyme or reason to them, it felt like there was no order to anything, scenes were just plopped in wherever the author felt like it. Something I thought would be a big plot point - returning to Boston and seeing her ex - ended up feeling so small and like a non-event. No major reactions were had over events that should cause a major reaction. I couldn't be bothered reading through the summaries of musicals or movies or tv shows that were inserted at random points in the book. There was probably a reason but I couldn't find it? Again, I really wanted to love this but I just found SO many problems and couldn't find the point to it all.

DNF 54%
Great cover. I’m always excited to hear about novels involving trans women. I found Edith’s previous relationships with their lesbian friends, Tessa and Valerie, to be an interesting aspect to explore. Unfortunately there’s nothing keeping the audiences attention. I don’t know where the story is headed.

It’s difficult to pass impartial judgement on autobiographical theater. If a playwright has written a play about their own life, then I have to assume the directors and producers and editors and agents in sure have a hard time saying “oh sorry this scene doesn’t quite work” when it’s a scene that the author literally experienced in their very own life. “Oh this dialogue sounds weird” okay well someone actually said it. Autofiction is the same slippery beast. If it’s you, your literal life, how can someone apply the same editorial lens as a piece of purer fiction? Katherine Packert Burke’s debut is a tangly fun read about an interwoven group of friends reckoning with their pasts/life changes/general messiness. The feelings were raw, the writing was lovely, the characters were authentically frustrating and endearing. However, I do wish a more heavy handed editor had chopped away at this debut a bit more. Did all dialogue need to be in italics? For what purposes? It seemed like a style-for-style’s-sake choice. Did we need to know every song and artist the main character was listening to? What do we gain from that? It may be /accurate/, but was it necessary? I love Sondheim, but did we need plot summaries of so many of his shows? Chop chop chop! Burke’s voice shines brightest in dialogue, conversations between friends, digging deep into the minds of her characters. I will be excited to read more of her fiction. Her Twitter is very funny. I do love that the book is exactly 272 pages long, as all good books are. For fans of Idlewild (not just because Thomas blurbed this book), Maggie Nelson, having a personal identity crisis because of the evolving identities of people from your past, Greta & Valdin by Rebecca Reilly, and owning (and actually reading) the Finishing the Hat box set.

Thank you to Norton and Netgalley for the ARC!

The friendships we form in college create a special bond that lasts a lifetime. Edith forges these connections while navigating her journey into womanhood. This novel offers valuable insights into the deep bonds of friendships and relationships, and the complexities that can arise from these connections.

What an amazing debut. Burke's writing is beautiful and grips the reader in the ways it needs to. This book explores womanhood and all that goes into it while following the stories of three different woman, and you are transported right into their lives. This book was such an impactful read, and I think it shows that Burke is an author to look out for in the future. These characters are well-rounded and real as they struggle with what life throws at them while also learning to live. This was a great read