Praise for Terry Dactyl "The historical novel on acid. Terry's existence--between protesting George Floyd's murder, and chatting about a new cruising app called Sniffies--creates a recognition of social absurdity that Mattilda elevates with her iconoclastic, stylish beauty into a work that has as much to say about vulnerability as it does about trees, and about time itself. This is a book about consciousness, art, and "getting ready" to be part of a world that will never be ready for you." --Sarah Schulman, author of The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity " Terry Dactyl is the realest fiction I've read in a long time. It's the exact sort of novel we need at this (or any) historical juncture: hilarious, moving and radically political. The writing sparkles. Sycamore has excelled herself and that's saying something." --Isabel Waidner, author of Corey Fah Does Social Mobility " Terry Dactyl made me cry and made me laugh out loud.
It has all the pain and joy, struggle and delight of the lives of those who color outside the lines. It's a book about family and friendship and love and knowing when and how to change your life." --McKenzie Wark, author of Love and Money, Sex and Death "Expansive and confidential, nostalgic and hopeful, Terry Dactyl follows its singular, indelible heroine and her search for meaning and community over the span of several decades, from growing up in the AIDS crisis to the club and art scenes of the 1990s to the isolation of the early COVID pandemic, all through the voice of Sycamore's piercing, mesmerizing prose. You won't be able to put it down." --Lisa Ko, author of Memory Piece Past Praise: Praise for Touching the Art Finalist for the Pacific Northwest Book Awards Finalist for the Washington State Book Awards "Sycamore creates a mosaic of art and humanity, flaws and all." --Sarah Neilson, The Seattle Times "[ Touching the Art ] blurs the lines of genre convention and polyvocality by assembling a multi voiced collage of texture, feeling, and evidence . Sycamore paints with language, using it as a device to translate her grandmother's canvases into multisensory descriptions that branch off into various sites of memory, analysis, and juxtaposed quotations, modeling how inseparable art and life are." --Sam Sax, The Believer "[Sycamore] explores the fertile ground of her life with incredible nuance in prose that reads almost like stream-of-consciousness but is actually an intricate and deliberate prism of meaning.
" --Sarah Neilson, Shondaland "Sycamore offers readers a brilliant rethinking of the value of art and the possibility of connection across seemingly intractable familial divides." --Elizabeth Hall, Full Stop "Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore braids humor, tragedy, and unabashed presence in every single sentence she writes. With Touching the Art she blends history, essay, and memoir, telling her own secrets and truths through the lives of others. I adore Sycamore's writing and would follow her anywhere. Nobody touches the art like Sycamore." --Catherine Lacey, author of Biography of X.