Soften the Blow

by Bread Tarleton

Audrey Morris is a trans woman who was once a popular professional wrestler. Transphobic management and a horrible in-ring accident drove her from the sport. Sequestered in a small town, she struggles with her identity, body dysmorphia, addiction, and isolation in a series of surreal, interior vignettes. Can she find self-acceptance and community in the face of her own trauma?

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Publication Date: May 13th, 2025
Book Size: 7.5 x 10 inches
Pages: 380
Format: Smyth-sewn softcover, full color
ISBN: 978-1-956636-44-4

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Praise for Soften the Blow:

Bread Tarleton’s SOFTEN THE BLOW is a tidal wave of deep repression, and the lengths such feelings manifest as in order to finally be acknowledged. Audrey’s wrestling is performed both as a vocation and a ritual within herself, twisting and colliding until a new being can emerge from her identical heel.”

— Lillie J. Harris, author of If I Had Known...