An account of a court case in which a woman accused her best friend of impersonating a man during sex, and won—a study of desire, performance, truth, and the stories we tell about ourselves in public, online, in love, and in law.
Scott is less interested in whether this was the correct verdict than she is in investigating the larger meanings of this strange, sad trial, which exposed the private lives of both participants to ridicule ... Scott is a supremely good guide to this complex terrain, thoughtful, nuanced and agile.
When Scott is telling the two conflicting narratives laid out in the courtroom this is a riveting and revealing book that takes the reader deep into the processes of justice and law, but although Scott strives not to take sides, she has a point of view ... It seems strange to me that Scott (who is a rape victim and a lesbian) doesn’t give more weight to the idea that the sex act and the sexed body might have a particular relationship.
