…There’s a deep, almost painful beauty in her seemingly dispassionate language, and as Lavender interweaves the story of her most recent illness with those of her childhood and young adulthood, she also gives context to the physical contours and social history of the working-class Pacific Northwest landscape that was her home. In sifting through her unwanted memories, poking at the still-raw scars and bruises, Lavender shows how it is possible to transcend the body and its demands, to construct a whole and rewarding life out of a fractured past.
Lessons in Taxidermy reviewed in Bitch Magazine: Feminist Response to Pop Culture