Written from the perspective of stone butch lesbian Jess Goldberg, it intimately details her life in the last half of the 20th century in New York.
While fictional, the work takes large inspiration from Feinberg's lived experiences, describing it as "Like my own life, this novel defies easy classification.
"[1] While Stone Butch Blues is a heavy read as noted by its advisory warning, it is frequently discussed as an essential work for LGBT communities, as it "never shies away from portraying the anti-Semitism, classism, homophobia, anti-butch animus, and transphobia that protagonist Jess Goldberg faced on a daily basis—but it also shows the healing power of love and political activism.
"[2] The narrative of Stone Butch Blues follows the life of Jess Goldberg, who grows up in a working-class area of Buffalo, New York in the 1940s.
When she reaches puberty and feels the weight of gendered difference, Jess learns of a gay bar from a coworker.
Traumatized, she drops out of school the next day, packing her bags and running away from home to a lesbian bar, where a butch, Toni, offers to let Jess sleep on her couch.
Jess finds her place in the lesbian community of Buffalo while the cops continue to raid gay bars.
After encountering Theresa and her new partner at a grocery store, Jess decides she needs to leave Buffalo and moves to New York City.
After returning to New York City, Jess witnesses a queer rights demonstration and decides to speak about her experiences.
"[3] The New York Public Library has listed it as one of 125 books they love,[4] marking it as the forefront of a "new movement of transgender political identity and solidarity that was taking shape in the 1990s.
[7] As mentioned by Diane Anderson-Minshall in The Advocate, Jess's relationships throughout the novel also highlight the historical significance of femme sex workers within lesbian communities.
[8] Stone Butch Blues is considered a cult classic in LGBT communities, and continues to be popular almost 30 years after its original publication.
At the Michael C. Weidemann LGBTQ Library, which houses over 9,000 books, Stone Butch Blues "is forever being checked out.
"[11] After Feinberg's death in 2014, the book received renewed media attention, mentioned in Slate, The Guardian, CNN, Jezebel, and others.
[15] Feinberg requested that the 20th anniversary edition was made available for free as "part of her entire life work as a communist to 'change the world' in the struggle for justice and liberation from oppression.
Jay Prosser writes that, "Jess does not feel at home in her female body in the world and attempts to remake it with hormones and surgery.
Cat Moses writes that "Stone Butch Blues is informed by an underlying yearning for the development of a revolutionary class consciousness among the proletariat, across gender and racial divisions.
"[20] Stone Butch Blues has been translated into Chinese,[21] Russian,[22] German,[23] Italian,[24] Hebrew,[25] Slovenian,[26] Basque,[27] French,[28] and Spanish.