A variety of gender studies are flourishing in Poland, although their reach and influence outside of Poland is limited by their usually being written in Polish. An English-language monograph on “non-normative identities” in twentieth-century Polish literature can be seen as a very welcome addition to global gender studies (p. 1). In his book entitled Queer Transgressions in Twentieth-Century Polish Fiction: Gender, Nation, Politics, Jack J. B. Hutchens tackles two goals. On the one hand, he proposes close readings of a number of “transgressive” literary texts that span the decades from the 1930s to the present. On the other, he openly states that, though “idealistic,” he wishes “to [intervene] into both Polish culture and politics” (p. 1). Scholarly works rarely have political objectives.Chapters 1 through 4 constitute the close readings. Hutchens begins by comparing Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz's “The Teacher” [Nauczyciel] (1936) with Witold Gombrowicz's Trans-Atlantyk (1953). Iwaszkiewicz's realistic short story (actually, a novella) ends with one protagonist's tragic suicide in a moment of panic. Meanwhile, Gombrowicz “uses the grotesque to subvert both nationalism and compulsory heterosexuality” (p. 48). His novel ends “in an absurd booming laughter” (p. 49). Both short story and novel criticize conservative “nationalist heteronormative regimes” and show how transgressions lead to “homosexual panic” (p. 48). In chapter 2, Hutchens introduces Julian Stryjkowski, whose writing he describes as a “more reconciliatory project” (p. 51). Hutchens does close readings of three of the writer's works: the 1974 novel In the Willows . . . Our Fiddles [Na wierzbach . . . nasze skrzypce], the 1982 novella Tommaso del Cavaliere, and the 1993 auto-fictional memoir Silence [Milczenie]. Stryjkowski had to navigate his identity as a gay Jewish Pole while living in communist-era Poland (definitely homophobic and not always friendly to Jews). Hutchens credits Stryjkowski's early years “in the liminal, interstitial space of the Polish Kresy,” a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-lingual environment, with influencing his desire to reconcile various identities (p. 72). Stryjkowski, Hutchens argues, refuses to see “being Polish” and “being Jewish” as mutually exclusive, but rather views a multiplicity of identities as a strength (pp. 72, 73). Being both gay and an ardent communist complicated Stryjkowski's search for an identity. Though able to discuss freely his Polish/Jewish sides, Stryjkowski limited his open expression of homoerotic desire to the historical novella about Michelangelo. Even in his post-communist “coming-out” work, Silence, the writer felt that he “could discuss his desires only tangentially” given the continued homophobia of Polish culture (p. 73).In chapter 3, Hutchens turns to the work of another émigré author, Marian Pankowski. After briefly considering the early novella Here comes Matuga: Adventures [Matuga idzie: Przygody] (1955) and the late memoir From Auschwitz to Belsen: Adventures [Z Auszwicu do Belsen: Przygody] (2000), he focuses his close reading on the novel Rudolf (1980). Hutchens shows how within a postmodern form that mixes high and low and blurs the line between form and content (p. 77), Pankowski completely rejects Polish Romantic messianism and martyrology, “setting the Eros of queer desire against the Thanatos of nationalism” (p. 82). According to Hutchens, in Rudolf, Pankowski offers a “philosophy of jouissance” and values “the corporeal, the human, the base, but also the present and fleeting” (p. 82).Finally, in Chapter 4, Hutchens moves into the post-communist period with his analysis of Olga Tokarczuk's so-called “Silesian trilogy” of novels: E. E. (1995), Longago and Other Times [Prawiek i inne czasy] (1996), and House of Day, House of Night [Dom dzienny, dom nocny] (1998). According to Hutchens, in order to subvert the political and social nationalism that re-appeared after 1989, Tokarczuk uses “a feminist methodology and later a queer post-modern aesthetic” in order to abolish the idea of “stable borders between nations, genders, and ethnicities” (p. 96). The first two works present events in chronological order, but rely on dream-like states, magic, and fantasy to blur borders. In the last novel, the author introduces a genderless narrator and a loose structure consisting of seemingly unrelated stories (pp. 109, 110). Tokarczuk sets E. E. and House of Day, House of Night in Silesia, presented as an “unbounded” area inhabited over a thousand years by Poles, then Germans, then Ukrainians, Lithuanians, and again Poles (p. 116). Throughout these chapters, Hutchens gives convincing close readings of the texts and draws comparisons between them. He offers short biographies of the authors and introduces cultural and historical background in order to elucidate the analysis.The hardest part of any work to write is the introduction, especially if an author wishes to discuss many different issues. This is the case here. Hutchens discusses his goals, methodology, and theoretical underpinnings, including a theoretical discussion of the relationship between gender and nationalism. He offers considerable information on Polish history and culture, and also includes examples from politically transgressive acts in the United States, such as pride parades. He summarizes scholarship in Poland on queer theory and nationalism. He explains the meaning of “autofiction,” the genre of many of the analyzed texts, and briefly introduces the actual literary works. This is a lot of ground to cover in a relatively short introduction. The organization can make at times for confusing reading. Moreover, for the reader unfamiliar with Polish history and/or culture, the introduction's brevity can be a challenge. In fact, some paragraphs are so compact that they may become misleading. For example, on page 14 in the first sentence of the paragraph beginning “The messianism of Polish Romanticism . . . ,” Hutchens mentions the link between Romantic messianism, Catholicism, and Polish nationalism. In the next sentence, he introduces Roman Dmowski, writing that he “is most responsible for codifying this connection between the Polish and the Catholic” (p. 14). Though he does give Dmowski's dates in parentheses, those unfamiliar with the periodization of Polish culture might conclude that Dmowski was part of Romanticism.Two other issues appear in the Introduction. Given that his book appeared in 2020 and that Polish masculinity studies have been rapidly developing in all directions, including some post-2016 scholarship would have been helpful, such as the excellent work of Wojciech Śmieja and Dezydery Barłowski. Even Tomasz Basiuk, whom Hutchens mentions, has done more recent work, not just on English-language literature, but also on Poland. Barłowski's article on the homoerotic subtext of right-wing novels from the Interwar period might have been helpful when discussing Iwaszkiewicz's story from the same period. The second issue occurs on page 13 in the paragraph beginning “The roots of modern Polish nationalism, as is the case for many other nationalisms, can be traced to the eighteenth century.” Technically this is correct, but in the context of discussing both Polish nationality and gender definitions, Hutchens should have mentioned at least briefly that, in contrast to Western Europe, Polish definitions of masculinity and attitudes to homosociality actually have their roots in the early modern period (the late sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries). Here Halina Filipowicz's 2014 book, Taking Liberties, could have offered a wealth of information. Moreover, Tomasz Tomasik has an informative 2016 article that summarizes the development of Polish masculinities and contrasts each stage with Western development.Hutchens’ Conclusion is very brief, though he offers a number of comparisons of the different texts throughout his analysis. He then adds an Epilogue that discusses the situation of sexual minorities in twenty-first-century Poland and introduces the work of Jerzy Nasierowski. An actor, writer, and activist, Nasierowski has loomed large over transgressive works since the 1980s. In Hutchens’ view, however, Nasierowski's artistic production is so extensive that he was beyond the scope of the present study, though he hopes to return to him someday.Queer Transgressions should appeal both to scholars of Polish literature and to Anglophone scholars of gender studies. For Polish literature scholars, the monograph offers good close readings of texts, as well as comparisons between them. Moreover, to scholars in Poland it offers an outsider's perspective on the topic of gender and nationalism. Engagement by scholars of different countries enriches a discipline. Despite certain shortcomings in the Introduction, Anglophone gender scholars can come away with a wealth of new information about a culture that developed differently from Western European and American cultures. Finally, I am not sure to what degree the “idealistic intervention” into Polish culture is realizable. However, writers have often been idealistic, even when knowing that nothing can come of their idealism, yet still deeming it necessary.