Nonfiction by Oliver Radclyffe, reviewed by Beth Johnston
FRIGHTEN THE HORSES: A MEMOIR (Roxane Gay Books)

Frighten the Horses, Oliver Radclyffe’s poised and witty memoir of gender transition, opens in a Manhattan barbershop, as he gets a shave and basks in the scents, sounds, and banter around him. His masculine bona fides established—“I was man enough to have made it onto my barber’s Instagram page”—Oliver takes us back in time to the early 2010s, when he was Nicky, “the extrovert, charming Englishwoman who hosted the best dinner parties; the devoted wife and mother who attended school PTA meetings, well-presented and slim in expensive jeans offset with a lot of jewelry, subtle eye makeup, and a mane of long blond hair.” Nicky’s perfect appearance was intended to deceive. In reality, she was losing her hair from unarticulated anxiety, coping with mysterious aches and pains, and dropping weight without trying, all while her therapist, Henry, encouraged her to explain what she meant when she said, “It’s like a jack-in-the-box: it keeps bursting out, and I keep trying to stuff it back in again.” Nicky’s answer: “Henry, I think I might be gay.” 

At the outset of Frighten the Horses, Radclyffe knows one thing and one thing only: aside from tending to four beloved children, the only time he has felt joy as Nicky, the only time Nicky has felt like herself, was while riding a motorcycle in her early twenties with a gang of biker dudes: 

…my torso hard and muscular like theirs, skin tanned, biceps tightening under a T-shirt, shoulders flat and wide, my motorbike taking the place of the only thing they possessed that I didn’t. I was one of them, I was meant to be out there among them, a boy among men, nothing separating us except for a few inches of road. 

The explanation of how Nicky went from an art school grad and biker to mid-life matronhood—and how Oliver extracted himself from the stultifying life he’d built—kept me up all night, devouring the memoir’s pages. I was spellbound as Radclyffe deconstructed each layer of himself: separating from his husband; beginning to date women and awakening to sexual delight; trying to figure out what it means that even as an out lesbian, Nicky senses a “phantom penis”; and ultimately embracing the man he is, even as his kids still call him Mom.

Radclyffe was a diarist in his 80s-era, British-boarding-school youth, taking up the practice again in the face of those persistent questions from his therapist. The diarist’s gift for immediacy and vivid detail comes through in the memoir’s polished prose. At home with four children under ten, Radclyffe wipes noses, pours juice, delivers snuggles, and reads bedtime stories. In Manhattan and Provincetown, Radclyffe takes women to coffee, restaurants, art galleries, and bed. At queer bookstores, Stonewall, and LGBTQ support groups, he learns about the history of a movement he barely registered as a young person in the UK surrounded by casual homophobia. And in long conversations with his friends and sometimes-befuddled family, he charts his unfurling understanding of gender. Everything is intensely observed. Radclyffe notes the purple velvet smoking jacket worn to a date, the smell of cut grass in England in the summer “mingling with the scent of sweet peas and roses,” the warmth of a rocker-girlfriend’s hand inside the pocket of her sheepskin jacket, the feel of his father holding his hand when he comes out as gay.  

And the details in these scenes contribute to their deep humor, too. In one episode early on, Radclyffe’s golden retriever puppy rips up an Amazon order filled with books on lesbian identity that Radclyffe has hidden. Radclyffe and his twin daughters hold a race to see who can pick up the most shredded pages “before Daddy gets home.” Radclyffe admits to a childhood friend that sex with men was never arousing but that “I thought perhaps it was something you had to get used to, like listening to Dvořák or liking the taste of olives.” In one of the angriest—and funniest—passages in the book, Radclyffe rages at the reactions of his parents’ upper-crust friends to the news he’s trans. Learning that the friends mostly express sympathy for Radclyffe’s soon-to-be-ex husband, Radclyffe launches into a cri de coeur about the erasure and marginalization of trans people in every area—from bathrooms to health care. His rant crescendos with the complaint that “testosterone can’t give me the one thing I want, which is a working fucking penis!” In the stunned family silence that follows, Radclyffe’s father simply deadpans: “If it’s any consolation, my penis doesn’t work anymore either.”  

In moments like this and so many others, what shines through is how self-deprecating the narrator is—and how self-aware. As Radclyffe understands, that willingness to mock himself is in part a defense, honed at fancy suburban parties where Nicky mingled with her husband’s colleagues and their spouses, “throwing in bons mots . . . using humor to hide my anxiety.” 

But to skewer yourself, you have to appreciate how others see you. Throughout the book, Radclyffe shows this keen appreciation of others’ perspectives, viewing those around him with compassion. Take Radclyffe’s ex-husband, Charles, a man so obsessed with appearances that his first question when Nicky comes out as gay is whether anyone else knows. Despite being frustrated with Charles, Radclyffe shoulders equal responsibility for their years together, at one point writing: “Charles wanted a calm, harmonious relationship, so that’s what I gave him.” This pattern repeats as Radclyffe describes friends, parents, and lovers. He gives us both sides of a conflict. When his years’-long romance with a woman named Jaime breaks down, I empathized almost equally with both of them. Jaime is done with men, so her sorrow at the prospect of Radclyffe’s transition is genuine. At the same time, this is Radclyffe’s first full, loving relationship, and he tries everything to keep it from ending. The result of this comprehensive perspective is a humane memoir, one that demonstrates hard-earned love for all involved.

The author’s empathy in turn evokes understanding and compassion from the reader. While Radclyffe doesn’t have space to recount the history of anti-trans sentiments in the US or the UK, it is nonetheless the implicit backdrop to everything he writes. As he says at one point, the “whispering would end only when people like me were normalized, but the only way to normalize my identity was through exposure.” Radclyffe’s willingness to share the difficult truths of his life offers such exposure, shining a needed light on the experiences of transgender people in the United States and beyond. But Frighten the Horses is more than an important book: it is one of the most compelling of recent memoirs, a story that shows both the pain and the joy that follow when you decide to become fully yourself. 

Frighten the Horses was released in paperback in September by Roxane Gay Books, an imprint of Grove Atlantic.

Beth Johnston trained as a lawyer before earning an MFA from Bennington College. She has written essays and reviews for The Washington Post, The New Republic, Paste, and other publications. She lives in Washington, DC, where she works as a writer and editor.

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