What She Left Me

Judy Doenges’s collection What She Left Me: Stories and a Novella follows a cast of often misfit or dejected characters on their journey to come to terms with the world around them and explore their sense of self. Many of the characters in the collection are gay; an undertone of the work is the exploration of blue-collar gay life in the 1970s and beyond. The most popular story among critics is the novella, “God of God's,” about a gay butcher in 1970s Chicago who struggles to come out in the midst of race riots in the city.
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In the title story, the main character, Sandra, is struggling to recover from the death of her alcoholic mother. Sandra, whose mother tore apart her childhood with her disease, recently nursed her mother through a bout of terminal cancer. In the aftermath of her mother's death, Sandra can't seem to find meaning in her own life – instead, she putters around the house, looking at the strange bits of paraphernalia her mother left behind.

The protagonist of “Crooks,” Ceil is a misfit of her own making – she is part of a gang of juvenile delinquents, mostly boys, who all lust after Jody, a local girl. Self-destructive and obviously in emotional pain, Ceil defies her parents in a number of ways. However, she is particularly interested in seeking revenge on Jody; she pokes holes in the condoms she finds in Jody's purse. Ceil's story comes to a moment of painful tension when she talks a grungy biker out of his knife, using it to cut herself in an act of self-hate.

Other stories in the collection include “Solved,” in which a woman arrested by a bounty hunter for not paying back a bad debt to her bail bondsmen goes into labor while in captivity. In “Occidental,” a man goes to a bar for a relaxing drink after his wife throws him out, only to relive haunting memories from his time in the military during the war in Vietnam.



“The Whole Numbers of Families” focuses on another lesbian character who struggles in what she knows is a failing relationship. She finds surprising relief while visiting her dying aunt, which solidifies her sense of family, and its meaning in her life.

Finally, the longest work in the collection, the novella, “God of God's,” follows the protagonist Odin Tollefson, a butcher working in inner-city Chicago in the 1970s. Odin is tough-looking, over six and a half feet tall; his profession as a butcher in a city grocery store chain places him firmly in blue-collar life in Chicago. In this backdrop, Odin struggles to come to terms with his blooming sexuality. His struggle is set against the racial tensions, and the gritty and unforgiving world of urban Chicago during this period.

Judy Doenges, a writer and a professor at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado, has written two books – What She Left Me and The Most Beautiful Girl in the World. What She Left Me was the winner of the 1998 Breadloaf Writer's Conference Bakeless Literature Prize for Fiction. Doenges sets most of her stories and novels in the West and Midwest, where she lives and was raised, often featuring the complex inner lives of LGBTQ characters. She identifies as part of the LGBTQ community.