(It’s named for those little chocolate-dipped candied orange peels.) The Fixed Stars describes a white, upper-middle class version of a queer awakening—this is Seattle, after all—and its self-awareness is appreciated, but these nods to privilege often feel compulsory when not grappled with more fully. Finding her way to a queer identity as a divorced cis mother who lives in a pretty straight part of town turns out to be a far more dizzying trajectory than she had thought. Finding her way to a queer identity as a divorced cis mother who lives in a pretty straight part of town turns out to be a far more dizzying trajectory than she had thought. But as the book progresses, that tension slackens, and opens up to a kinder, more nuanced self-assessment. Not towards my husband so much, but that I was deceiving the reader somehow.” This … Frustration is a central theme,providing a foil for Wizenberg’s introspection. Introspection and domestic life have long been her chosen themes, and both get swept up in the storm of this book, shaken and transformed, then set back down on solid ground—remade more loosely, more humanely. Have I been wrong this whole time? As the book progresses, Wizenberg eases into the idea that the past, straight version of herself wasn’t wrong or in denial, just the version of who she was at the time. “Sexual orientation was part of my essential self.” And it was part of the essential selves of the gay men she idolized; this was a foundational fact in her admiration of them. “Sexual orientation was part of my essential self.” And it was part of the essential selves of the gay men she idolized; this was a foundational fact in her admiration of them. Perhaps naturally, writing about her current relationship feels like a touchier subject for Wizenberg than writing about ones that have ended. What’s left isn’t a version of our narrator who is finally safe from crisis forever, but one who’s done the hard work grappling with change, so that the next time dark clouds form on the horizon, she’ll be ready. She described it like loving boxed mac and cheese as a kid and then finding it revolting as an adult—a fully mundane, widely accepted shift in preference and feeling. As an adult, realizing you might be gay, even just a little bit gay, when you had long seen yourself otherwise often turns into a second puberty, one that is more intellectual than physical. The Fixed Stars is as much a queer coming-of-middle-age story as it is a loving, honest portrait of a dissolving marriage. But in late November, after nearly two months of radio silence, Wizenberg resurfaced and published a lengthy blog post coming out.