Gig’s father was a war veteran, a big-game hunter, and the greatest novelist of his generation. It’s hard enough shouldering his legacy, not to mention the family curse of addiction and mental illness that haunts Gig like a ghost. But there’s something else, too: Gig wants to be a woman.

What does it mean to chase transition when nothing you do seems to turn out right? How do you escape masculinity when your father seems to embody the word itself? The Shadow and the Shape explores these questions through the lens of Ernest Hemingway’s real-life child. Through two acts of unflinching, free-flowing memories, Gig Hemingway is presented as a complicated individual struggling to strike a balance between chasing their family’s legacy and forging their own path.