Hand Me the Limits

Hand Me the Limits attacks the taboo subject of illness and healthcare in our American dystopia with the grit, style, and panache that only Ted Rees could muster. Through a hybrid mix of memoir, experimental lyric, and essay, this Lambda Literary Award finalist tells us the story of losing a part of himself to cancer— and plumbs the deep, existential conflicts and emotions that such a loss presents to a queer dissident. Rees has long been a sly prophet of doom, insisting that this infected world must change or perish. Hand Me the Limits asks: what happens when you witness a loved one succumbing to disease? What happens when you, too, succumb to disease? You find yourself on the other side of reality in a domain ignored and scorned by polite society, suffering loss of dignity on top of potential loss of life, limb, and hole. Rees rejects traditional cancer narratives, approaching themes of sickness and healing through the lens of his youth as a wayward, salacious crust punk with anarchic values and a killer taste in music.