“In My Butch Career Esther Newton takes her readers through her chaotic family history, the uncharted territory of coming to terms with an identity that is far outside the norms for her generation, and the transforming effects that new social movements had on her. Bringing personalities, scenes, conversations, and relationships to life, Newton has written a book that is powerful, gripping, and immensely readable.” - John D’Emilio
“Esther Newton's sharp insights into her developing consciousness are sometimes so precise and revealing that they take my breath away. Her wit gives her personal traumas in a hostile society universal meaning, making her pain and pleasure available to all, while her reflections on the interconnections of gender, sex, and feminism in love-making remain fresh. Capturing the multiple layers of identity and examining how social forces shape our lives, My Butch Career is absolutely unique in the way it explores women's desire as both personal and social. I know of no other memoir like it.” - Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy
"Newton is not afraid to get personal and offer her mistakes, personality development, and failed relationships for contemplation. After decades of personal and professional struggle, Newton finds a scholarly community in an evolved culture and helps to create the academic study of gender and sexuality. This book is simultaneously a memoir and an exemplar of this important field." - Emily Dziuban, Booklist
"In the tradition of the best memoirs, it is chattily engaging, historically illuminating, and deeply, provocatively ruminative. . . . My Butch Career feels intoxicatingly, palpably real: It’s a story we can reach out and touch and one we can also situate ourselves in, even if we’re decades younger than the 78-year-old Newton. What makes My Butch Career so compelling is that while writing about herself, Newton is also examining her milieu with the eye of the cultural anthropologist she became. The story she tells is as much our story as it is hers." - Victoria A. Brownworth, Curve
"The most captivating part of the book sees Newton circulating through second-wave feminist and lesbian circles in New York and Paris, where the debates, social hierarchies, and tangled affairs she encounters bring her to a late coming of age. In the eighties, her scholarship, once ignored, achieves recognition with the rise of gender and sexuality studies. The book is a thoughtful examination of how personal experiences spur intellectual progress." - The New Yorker
"Throughout My Butch Career, Newton is remarkably candid about the ways that class has influenced her work and perspective on the historical events unfolding around her. . . . It’s a testament to just how great an anthropologist and chronicler of queer life she is that Newton makes sure to include the kinds of details that paint a more complete and complex picture of the world as she’s experienced it." - Alexis Clements, Los Angeles Review of Books
"Disarming and compelling. . . . My Butch Career is the humorous and graceful story of a gender outlaw in the making, blazing the trail in queer academia." - The Advocate
"My Butch Career joins a distinguished list of lesbian herstories. . .. It is for readers interested in the psychological and cultural challenges for an individual who identifies as a butch lesbian, as well as readers who are interested in lesbian herstory within the greater context of thegay rights movement." - Cassandra Langer, Gay & Lesbian Review
"My Butch Career is an important narrative of liberation that contributes singularly to the growing body of collective LGBTQ history. It covers the first forty-one years of the writer’s life, a time frame that calls out for a sequel. Newton concludes her memoir with a tribute to the queer writers who have preceded her. With this work, she has secured her place in that pantheon." - Anne Charles, Lambda Literary Review
"I laughed, I cried, I thought heavily as I read and I am determined to meet Esther one day to discover that she is really my true sister or brother or whatever. . . . Esther Newton, although she might not like this title as a gender defying secular Jew, has become my Queen Esther." - Amos Lassen, Reviews by Amos Lassen
"My Butch Career beautifully portrays the vital necessity of queer sexual histories. . . . Clearly my career as a queer academic with a doctorate in feminist studies and a tenure-track job in anthropology was made possible by Esther Newton’s trailblazing work. Reading her memoir, I nevertheless feel deep resonances with her expressions not only of pleasure but also of frustration, anger, anxiety, ambivalence, and alienation as she built a professional life in the discipline of anthropology and the American academy. Things have changed, but not enough. Newton’s butch career is an inspiration to continue the struggle." - Erin L. Durban, American Ethnologist
"Newton is definitely a lesbian hero, and her story will inspire any lesbian, particularly those who struggle with being a non-conforming woman in a sexist society. Please read this book! Read it for the important lesson in lesbian history, for the gorgeous and sexy writing, and to celebrate one of our important lesbian pioneers." - Purple Sage blog
"Get a copy of My Butch Career and delve into a past that belongs to Esther personally and, thanks to her generous sharing, to all of us queer folk collectively. Read it. Relish it." - Tim Retzloff, Queer Remembering blog
"With many photographs to illustrate her memoir Esther leads us through her life and the journey is a complete pleasure – tender, hilarious, sad, and affirming. This is another important work by a gifted and valuable giant in the world of gender studies. Highly recommended." - Grady Harp, San Francisco Review of Books
“My Butch Career is an arrival story.... All anthropologists, students as well as educators, should read this because it calls attention to what has changed and shows the importance of LGBT/queer social movements and networks of non-normative communities.” - Anika Keinz, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Quarterly
