There may be no more famous form of seafood than an Apalachicola Oyster. People travel from all over the world for the chance to try out these oysters and gush over just how large, flavorful, and unique they are in comparison to other foods. In Other People’s Oysters, however, Apalachicola oysters are not merely internationally known delicacies bringing money and recognition to the bay – they are the center of family ties, a symbol of a disappearing way of life, and the catalyst for a social movement that rocks the nation.
Tripp and Jessica Rendell have lived on Richards Island in the Apalachicola Bay harvesting, selling, and cooking oysters for decades. During this time, their children – Carina, Bobby, and Roy Lee – grew up to take over the harvesting business (Carina), take over the family restaurant (Bobby) and run off into the wider world to become a lawyer and political activist (Roy Lee). Through the eyes of Carina, we watch life and work change throughout the bay throughout these decades, and witness the ways corporate, environmental and political policy focused more on wealth than the lives of the people and the conservation of the bay led to increasing poverty, decreasing oyster production, and the ongoing destruction of the bay. But when her latest series of law suits seeking aid and reparation stall in the courts, Roy Lee moves back home and forms a plan for taking back the bay, raising up the people, and fighting for the Rendells’ way of life. And when Roy Lee’s efforts gain national attention, the people of Richards Island face media and political scrutiny, increasing violence from outsiders, and an ongoing struggle to be heard in the halls of power. At the same time, the town rallies together seeking to fight for their way of life.
Although written as a first-person narrative that allows readers to imagine themselves in the shoes of a neuro-atypical, bisexual, non-binary person, Other People’s Oysters is a novel about families, politics, and social movements; how decisions by political elites influence the lives of working people, and the complex ways families and social movements form in relation to broader socio-political and environmental conditions. As in life, the themes of family and politics permeate the events captured in the following pages. Other People’s Oysters offers a view into the ways political decisions – by officials and activists – shape and shift the life course of individuals, families, and towns over time. It also provides a first person view of some ways social movements develop and play out in the lives of everyday people.
Alongside these broader social themes, Other People’s Oysters also presents explorations of neuro-atypical, bisexual, transgender and non-binary, asexual, and working-class experience all too rarely captured in contemporary media or academic materials. In contrast to academic and media emphasis on middle and upper class, neuro-typical, monosexual, and cisgender viewpoints, Other People’s Oysters allows readers to see the world through the eyes of a neuro-atypical (on the autism spectrum), non-binary, bisexual working-class person, and reminds readers of the existence of these intersecting social locations in the empirical world as well as within social and political mechanisms occurring throughout the broader society. Especially at a time when recognition of neuro-atypicality, bisexuality, and transgender as well as non-binary gender experiences are on the rise and working class experience and culture begins to find voice in social and political discourse throughout American media, Other People’s Oysters offers readers an opportunity to view the world, society, politics, social movements, family, and daily life through the eyes of a non-binary, bisexual, neuro-atypical, working class American in the south.
While entirely fictional, Other People’s Oysters is grounded in our own experiences as, on the one hand, a neuro-atypical, queer, agender scholar who works to provide healthcare and health education to working class communities in the south, and on the other, a neuro-atypical, bisexual, genderqueer scholar raised in the working class south. It is also built upon years of ethnographic, auto-ethnographic, historical, and statistical research we have done – individually and collaboratively – concerning southern, working class, LGBTQIAP, political, and neuro-atypical experience related to gender, health, sexualities, religion, and health intervention protocols. As scholars who have engaged in traditional academic publishing, artistic publishing of fictional materials related to social patterns and themes, and public and applied scholarship focused on the use of stories and emotions to facilitate education, advocacy, and expression, we see stories as powerful pedagogical tools for stimulating reflection and discussion about even the most complex topics. As such, we crafted this novel as a way for readers to step into the shoes of a mental, sexual, gendered, and classed experience uncommon in existing academic and media depictions of our society, and to walk through the types of local, regional, and national political activities that facilitate social movements.
For us, Other People’s Oysters is a pedagogical text blending our artistic and scientific endeavors in a manner that has, throughout each of our careers individually and collaboratively to date, been incredibly effective in classrooms and workshops with local communities. Further, the novel developed from our own recognition of the ways such stories are often useful in our teaching, advocacy, advising, and intervention work as well as our shared realization that such a story could be an incredibly useful way to introduce readers to some of the ways neuro-atypical people see and experience daily life. As such, Other People’s Oysters may be used as an educational tool for people seeking to better understand working class families and norms, neuro-atypical people, bisexuality, gender fluidity, the wide ranging effects of politics, and the formation of social movements; as a supplemental reading for courses dealing with social movements, families, class dynamics, political decision-making and outcomes, environmental politics, neuro-atypicality and mental diversity more broadly, sexualities, gender, rural and small town cultures, intersectionality and/or the American southeast; or it can, of course, be read entirely for pleasure.