The Freezer Door

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore — 2020

A meditation on the trauma and possibility of searching for connection in a world that enforces bland norms of gender, sexual, and social conformity. When you turn the music off, and suddenly you feel an unbearable sadness, that means turn the music back on, right? When you still feel the sadness, even with the music, that means there's something wrong with this music. Sometimes I feel like sex without context isn't sex at all. And sometimes I feel like sex without context is what sex should always be. --The Freezer Door The Freezer Door records the ebb and flow of desire in daily life. Crossing through loneliness in search of communal pleasure in Seattle, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore exposes the failure and persistence of queer dreams, the hypocritical allure of gay male sexual culture, and the stranglehold of the suburban imagination over city life. Ferocious and tender, The Freezer Door offers a complex meditation on the trauma and possibility of searching for connection in a world that relentlessly enforces bland norms of gender, sexual, and social conformity while claiming to celebrate diversity.

Reviews

Eva Decker@evadecker

Jan 4, 2023

Like nothing I’ve ever read, in the best way. I often put down the book for minutes at a time just to process what I’d felt. There’s a lot of pain in this book, but also beauty and joy and wisdom. “I remember the playground, where they called me sissy and faggot before I knew what those words meant, but I knew they meant I would never belong.” (p. 49) “When someone asks you how you’re feeling, and you tell them, and then they want to tell you why you’re feeling the way you’re feeling, you wonder why they asked.” (p. 51) “Part of the dream of queer is that it potentially has no opposite. Straight is the opposite of gay. Queer is a rejection of both.” (p. 71) “When someone else’s desire is what makes me feel mine, does this mean this is someone else’s desire?” (p. 85) “I don’t just want islands of closeness without a connecting structure, I want relationships that I feel in my body as a cellular possibility.” (p. 89) “Sometimes you play the same song so much that you up hating it, but then one day you wake up thinking: Why don’t I play that song anymore?” (p. 97) “A dominant narrative is always a form of erasure.” (p. 99) “Whenever you think your memory is not as good as it used to be, it’s important to remember there used to be less to remember.” (p. 137) “Sometimes the violence of people allegedly trying to help is the worst kind of violence.” (p. 177) “The best thing about a rhetorical question is the answer.” (p. 178) “A question of aesthetics is barely a question at all. When this is all we treasure, there is no way not to lose.” (p. 199) “I don’t believe in nostalgia because it camouflages violence.” (p. 227) “Love is love isn’t the most helpful rhetoric for those of us who grew up abused by the people who told us they loved us the most.” (p. 231)