Persona by Aoife Josie Clements: Review & Analysis

A new queer classic for Trans Day of Visibility

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD2m_iqD7dI

Persona (Spoiler-Light Review)

I heard about and read Persona through a book club, and knew immediately upon closing the book that I'd soon be writing about it. The novel is a brand new 2026 release from Canadian musician, actress and author Aoife Josie Clements, and may as well have been tailored to perfectly match my taste in horror.

As we discussed at our club meeting, I'd recommend avoiding any detailed description – even the three disparate paragraphs on the back of the book – so as to fully enjoy the experience of mystery and discovery if offers. I also know this won't be for everyone, so up here in the spoiler-light section I'll give a basic hook and a few possible comparisons in terms of what to expect from Persona.

The hook: a shut-in trans woman finds explicit content of herself online, which she didn't make.

Tonal comparisons: Persona is a little more lucid and hopeful than Negative Space or Fever Dream, but darker and more inwardly human than There is No Antimemetics Division or We Used to Live Here. For me at least, I think House of Leaves and Our Wives Under The Sea might be helpful parallels for the dread and mystery which pervade those stories.

Anyway, the actual content of Persona is only half of what deeply fascinates me about the novel. There’s also an underlying reflection here about the ways society treats young, low-income trans women and the unfortunate push towards certain types of work and lives.

That's the pitch! Consider finding Persona at your local library or queer bookstore and giving it a shot. I highly recommend it! In the next section, beware of spoilers.

Persona by Aoife Josie Clements

Spoilers & Analysis

One of the things I love about Persona is just how many kinds of horror it employs through its story. The first section reminds me of Amygdalatropolis, with Annie stuck online with the worst of humanity, living off wine and cigarettes amid hundreds of trash bags, feeling a mothering urge toward the infesting bugs around her while paying no attention to her own festering physical and mental condition.

Then Amy's section brings in nightmares and a half-dozen social horrors, on top of the everyday struggles both women face for simply being trans. They also reflect each other's fears: shut-in, barely-attempting-to-pass Annie being Amy's absolute rock bottom while Amy's sex work was the path Annie never wanted to take. Even before meeting, they are mutually existential horrors for one another: Annie thinks Amy must be her sleepwalking alternate self, while Amy believes Annie represents the (ritually cast-off) worst parts of herself.

The ending subverts all expectations, though, as the women explore the offices of their shared employer only to find themselves on a House of Leaves-esque near-infinite staircase, which in turn leads them to an eldritch fountain from which they (and many like them) were born. Amy, having been haunted by this place all her life, rejoins the biomass to be reshaped by the fountain. Annie flees, in hopes of beginning a new life for herself.

The implication is that their employer, Chariot, found this resource and is exploiting it to produce cheap, artificial-ish labour. It's funny that they have no clue why so many of the individuals produced are trans, despite exerting so much control over their lives. The final chapter suggests that, although Chariot still seems to be testing Amy and Annie to some degree, their 'products' are already being employed elsewhere, as ninety-nine miners with the same face are lost in a mine collapse elsewhere in the world.

Thanks book club for these insights: Annie dreams of ninety-nine roaches walking to their deaths in the dark very early in the book. Combined with some other strange moments – Annie seeming to astral project into Amy's room, Amy seeming to have some indication that Annie's been living nearby – and the Chariot executive's hint at shared consciousness, it seems very likely that these individuals are all connected in some way and that the mining incident is cotemporaneous with the events of the story.

Although the book wraps most of its mysteries up quite cleanly, I was left a little perplexed by the incident when Silas attempted to exorcise Amy's apartment, only to get a vision of her nightmares and attempt to replicate her own self-harming attempt from earlier in her life. But, as we worked out at book club, Silas being a cisgender product of the fountain helps things fit, by having him share a mental connection with Amy.

It's very possible there's more to uncover! Annie's in no condition to be any kind of reliable in her section's narration, but perhaps there are more psychic hints to be unburied. Annie and Amy are notably opposites in a lot of ways, but their behaviour and characteristics begin to change drastically as soon as they come into contact with one another.

I'd like to think that by being exposed to someone else they can relate to, they're able to shift and grow without feeling like they're giving into society's demands on them. But maybe it's also a kind of psychic bleeding together, the two becoming more like one as they get closer. It's nonetheless inspiring and heartwarming to see Amy take on confidence as she cares for Annie, and for Annie to progress from her absolute despair to ending the book in a place where she genuinely wants to live.

Art by @thefoxfisher

Trans Day of Visibility

Today, March 31st, is the International Transgender Day of Visibility. It's as important to talk about it today as it ever has been, what with the constant structural and personal attacks trans people face every day. It's horseshit, and it couldn't be more obvious that all of this hatred is ultimately based on nothing more than a desire to distract from the hundreds of otherwise we're under attack as a society. But that doesn't change the fact that the threats are real, frustrating, and dangerous.

Art like Persona and I Saw The TV Glow exists to illuminate the human experiences of transgender people. It's tough to make progress when that basic idea of shared humanity is called into question, so please consider engaging with some trans art today, or tomorrow, and sharing it with others.

We're all human beings, and we all have a right to exist. Yesterday I read The Organization is Here to Support You, which offered the sentiment that "you can't claim oppression in order to oppress people". And Jesus but that line calls out so much American bullshit. Just today, the Supreme Court negated a ban on fucking conversion therapy. We apparently love our freedom to oppress. Heaven forbid we recognize a freedom for people to live their own lives.

Persona ends with a call-to-action, to recognize and stand up when we see discrimination, violence, injustice. It's out there. Do we recognize it?

Thanks for reading and until next time <3