Audiobook Review: Babette

IndieBookView

May 24

Babette

by Ross Eliot

Genre: Memoir / LGBTQ / Audiobook

Run Length: Approx. 12 hrs

Reviewed by Andrea Marks-Joseph

This story is absurd, incredible, inappropriate—and completely true! It is a record of the years-long rollercoaster-ride of Ross Eliot living with his elderly history professor, Babette. But it's more than that too. It's a precious and poignant record of queer history, as told through the author's memories of sharing a home and making a life with this mysterious, magnificent trans person.

When reading Babette, I felt uncomfortable, I felt inspired, and I felt like with every turn of the page I grew deeper in my understanding of the gift that Eliot has given us with this unadulterated look at her life.

Babette is a trailblazing trans woman who broke boundaries and crossed lines. She made enemies of her loved ones and found family of her students. She lied and schemed and never took the possibilities of life for granted. This book is an important part, not only of queer and trans history, but a history of humanity and the bravery and brazenness it takes to live a full, dazzling life, and to truly leave your mark.