
That Woman Could Be You
Authors: Vi Khi Nao & Jessica Alexander
Publisher: BlazeVOX [books] (2022)
That Woman Could Be You is an orphic documentary of the circadian, an archive of queer and quotidian rituals, an observant meditation on the ephemerality and defiance of chronic pain, desire, and grief as they manifest in daily acts. This intrinsically sapphic & feminist project does not chronicle an excursion so much as the stillness of interiority: Alexander fluctuates between belief and disbelief at the news of her brother’s death and Nao manages the fatigue and breathlessness of heart surgery. Meanwhile the Interstates carry them from Louisiana to Texas to Colorado; to work and away from it. That Woman Could Be You lends a euphoric, nostalgic, and dreamlike beauty to the everydayness of diurnal tasks. It is about moving through the world together, as women, in Nao’s case a Vietnamese woman, and the newness of their love and life together.