Lynette Reini-Grandell’s Wild Things: A Trans-Glam-Punk-Rock Love Story is not simply a memoir about loving a transgender partner, nor is it only a chronicle of artistic rebellion in the underground music scenes of Minneapolis and New York. It is, at its core, a love story about endurance, confusion, courage, and the slow, often painful work of learning how to stay together when the world offers no maps, no language, and very little mercy. The book captures what it means for a cisgender woman and her trans spouse to grow side by side over decades, inventing their own rules as they navigate transition, community, hostility, and the relentless pull of creative ambition.
The author’s note sets the tone with striking honesty. Lynette writes about the person she married, the person she remains deeply in love with, now legally named Venus de Mars, using she and her pronouns. What follows is an acknowledgment that this truth did not arrive neatly or quickly. It took decades, shaped by a time when there were no visible role models, no accessible terminology, and no cultural framework for understanding what it meant to be transgender. They made it up as they went along, not out of rebellion, but out of necessity. This absence of guidance becomes one of the book’s quiet antagonists, a reminder that love alone does not eliminate fear, misunderstanding, or grief.
In the 1970s, Lynette fell in love with Steve Grandell, a charismatic and talented man whose artistic drive was impossible to ignore. Their marriage in 1983 felt like a continuation of that shared energy, a partnership grounded in creativity and affection. Five years later, when Steve came out to Lynette as transgender, the ground beneath their relationship shifted. The book does not romanticize this moment. Instead, it lingers in the uncertainty, the shock, and the emotional distance that followed. Lynette does not present herself as instantly enlightened or effortlessly supportive. She writes as a woman grappling with the loss of what she thought she knew, even as she tried to hold on to the person she loved.
As Steve gradually emerged publicly as Venus de Mars and became the front figure of the band All the Pretty Horses, the stakes grew higher. Venus’s artistic life demanded visibility, risk, and defiance, all of which collided with a society that was openly hostile to transgender people. Lynette describes how the pressures of public transition, coupled with the grind of the music industry, created fractures in their relationship. Success was not a simple victory. It came with long absences, financial instability, and emotional strain. The punk and glam rock worlds of the 1990s and early 2000s offered community and expression, but they also demanded relentless resilience.
One of the most powerful aspects of Wild Things is its refusal to frame love as static or pure. Love here is messy, negotiated, sometimes resentful, and constantly evolving. Lynette writes about jealousy, fear, and moments when staying together felt almost impossible. Yet she also captures the tenderness of shared survival, the way two people can learn to listen differently, to argue differently, and to redefine intimacy when old assumptions no longer apply. Their relationship becomes a living experiment, shaped by trial and error rather than certainty.The book gains additional depth when read alongside conversations with Venus de Mars herself, including her interview for The Heroines of My Life. In that interview, Venus speaks openly about beginning her transition in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a time marked by isolation and fear. She describes having no role models, no community, and no clear path forward. Hearing Venus articulate this loneliness adds a vital counterpoint to Lynette’s perspective. Together, their voices reveal how transition affects not just the person transitioning, but also the partner who must reinterpret their own identity, desires, and sense of stability.
Venus’s reflections on music, punk culture, and the do-it-yourself ethos echo throughout Lynette’s narrative. Punk was not just a genre or an aesthetic. It was a survival strategy. When traditional institutions rejected Venus for being trans, she built her own infrastructure, booking tours, releasing music independently, and carving out space in scenes that valued authenticity over conformity. Lynette situates their love story within this larger context of artistic resistance, showing how creativity became both a refuge and a source of conflict.
Hostility is a constant presence in Wild Things, sometimes overt and sometimes subtle. Lynette writes about public scrutiny, economic precarity, and the exhausting vigilance required to navigate everyday life as a visibly trans couple. Yet she also documents the communities they found, artists, musicians, and allies who offered solidarity when mainstream society did not. These moments of connection do not erase the pain, but they offer glimpses of what chosen family can look like.
What makes Wild Things particularly resonant is its refusal to offer easy resolutions. The book does not suggest that love conquers all, nor does it claim that understanding arrives fully formed. Instead, it argues quietly for commitment as a practice, something that must be renewed again and again in the face of change. Lynette and Venus do not survive because they are exceptional, but because they are willing to stay curious, to admit failure, and to keep talking even when silence would be easier.
In the end, Wild Things: A Trans-Glam-Punk-Rock Love Story stands as both a personal memoir and a cultural document. It captures a period before trans narratives were widely visible, before language caught up with lived experience. It honors the bravery of those who lived authentically without guarantees, and it reminds readers that transition is not a solitary journey. It ripples outward, reshaping relationships, communities, and notions of love itself. Through Lynette Reini-Grandell’s careful, unflinching prose, we are invited to witness not just a marriage that endured, but a shared becoming, forged in art, conflict, and an unwavering commitment to truth.
Available via Amazon
The Photo via The Heroines of My Life
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