A child born neither fully boy nor fully girl in Labrador, Canada, in 1968, is raised as Wayne by his parents, even though his mother and midwife/neighbor, the only person outside the family to know the truth, secretly nurture his feminine side, and it is not until he is able to leave his hometown and settle in St. John that he has the freedom to explore his dual identity.

Meet Xavier Boland, the untouchable cross-dresser, who walks loose and carefree as an old Broadway tune. Meet Miss Penrice, a lost old woman forced by wartime to parent a child for the first time. Meet a Zamboni mechanic turned funeral porteur, Madame Poirer’s lapdog (and its chastity belt), a congregation of hard-singing, sex-obsessed Pentecostals, and more. With The Freedom in American Songs, Kathleen Winter brings her unusual sensuality, lyrically...