THE LESBIAN LITERATURE PROJECT

 

So here it is: the sum total of my expertise gained on lesbian literature.  In the last two years I’ve spent working at a bookstore, one of my constant frustrations has been that there hasn’t been any easy way to find good lesbian lit, or even any systematic way at all.  I’ve seen some historical anthologies (Lillian Faderman’s Chloe Plus Olivia would be the best; check it out), but not that much on contemporary literature, and Internet searches never seemed to turn up very much – or else it turned up results so broad that they were virtually worthless.  And many bookstores have gotten this PC idea that putting gay/lesbian literature in its own section amounts to “ghettoization”, so it gets mixed in with the regular fiction section. 

 

Therefore, after spending several years doing my own research, I decided to make up a resource of my own.  I’m sure it’s terribly incomplete and flawed: keep in mind this is just the stuff I’ve found in my own time working at one specific bookstore.  The way I’ve worked it is that I’ve listed all the books I’ve come across, but I’ve only reviewed the ones I’ve read so far, or at least that I know something about. This means that all the books I've read have both star ratings and capsule reviews; books whose critical reception I'm familiar with but which I haven't read have star reviews; books whose plots I know but which I haven't read have plot summaries with no star reviews; and some books have no more than title and author.  In time I’ll do a little more research and post plot summaries of all of them, but for the time being, you’ll have to settle for what I know firsthand. :) 

A note on what I consider to be "lesbian literature": I'm using the term here to mean "fiction in which lesbian characters play an integral part." For this reason, almost all the lit listed here is from the 20th century, since lesbian writing was so heavily encoded before that. I really like Willa Cather and Jane Bowles and writers of that sort, but reading them has never really helped me shape my idea of myself as a lesbian in the modern world. That's mostly why I'm drawn so strongly to the books listed below, and why I made this website. Like I said, it is incomplete (I’ll happily amend it based on suggestions), but it’s a starting point, anyway.  Have fun!

 

Trash: Stories and Poems, Dorothy Allison - ***

A sharp-edged precursor to her better-known Bastard Out of Carolina, most of the vignettes will be recognized by anyone who’s read Bastard, and in general the book is a little too repetitive and bitter for my taste.  Nevertheless, it’s real and raw and unflinching - and damn, the woman knows how to write. 

Cavedweller, Dorothy Allison - **1/2

The story of a thirteen-year-old girl’s coming of age and her rocky relationship with her mother.  This one’s a little more bloated than either Trash or Bastard, but it’s also more rounded out.  Still, not her best effort.

Other Women, Lisa Alther - **

Aquamarine, Carol Anshaw - ***1/2

The story – or stories – of one woman’s life told in three different tales, all diverging from the crucial turning point in her life when she lost an Olympic swimming race to her lover. It’s one of the most innovative books I’ve read, and I adore Anshaw’s writing.  The central device – the three separate storylines – is a risk, and might not work for everyone, but it definitely paid off as far as I’m concerned.

Seven Moves, Carol Anshaw - ***

Psychologist Christine Snow finds her life in upheaval when her longtime lover vanishes.  Her search leads her across the world, but ultimately, the soul-searching which occurs as she reevaluates her lover and their life together proves even more arduous.  Probably the weakest of Anshaw’s novels, but still a damn good read.

Lucky in the Corner, Carol Anshaw - ****

My personal favorite of Anshaw’s books, though I know most people come down in favor of Aquamarine.  It’s hard to summarize the plot, because it’s more an evocation of a period in one family’s life than a plot-driven story; the mother’s having an affair and the daughter’s taking care of the baby of her lost-soul best friend, but I wouldn’t really say that’s what it’s about.  Ultimately, it’s just a simple, utterly believable take on the strained, awkward, and very human dynamics between mother and daughter. Lambda nominee.

Other Girls, Diane Ayres - *

I flipped through this and even tried to read the beginning, but it was so strange and nonsensical and badly written that I couldn’t get any farther than the first chapter. I do know at least one person who liked it, but I couldn’t make head or tail of it.

As Francesca, Martha Baer - **

Lesbian BDSM arouses horror in the PC bunch, so it’s only fairly recently that it’s started getting published at all.  Therefore, this tale of a no-nonsense businesswoman who taps into the submissive side of her nature through an online affair with an e-dominatrix is noteworthy in its subject matter, but riffling through its pages, that looked like about the only thing about it that is noteworthy: the writing, as I recall, was lumpy and uninspired, and it didn’t grab enough of my interest for me to read any further.

Odd Girl Out, Ann Bannon - **1/2

Ann Bannon’s books were originally published in the middle of what might be termed the lesbian pulp fiction boom of the 1950’s: the back cover reviews tout “Sex! Sleaze! Depravity!”, and the general perception is that these books are just bursting at the seams with lechery, lust, and decadent desire.  What a letdown, then, to find upon reading them earnest, melodramatic tales of the love that dared not speak its name, with tactful fadeouts just when the buttons start popping.  At least, Odd Girl Out was like that, and I haven’t read the rest.  Worth a read, sure, but not so great that I felt like bothering with the others.

Beebo Brinker, Ann Bannon

Journey to a Woman, Ann Bannon

Women in the Shadows, Ann Bannon

I Am a Woman, Ann Bannon

Nightwood, Djuna Barnes - ***

A Blind Man Could See How Much I Love You, Amy Bloom - ***1/2

I included this collection of short stories here even though only one of them could be considered relevant (and even that’s a stretch: a F2M transgender is not, properly speaking, a lesbian) for one simple reason: this woman’s writing kicks ass.

Trans-Sister Radio, Chris Bohjalian - ***1/2

This is another book about a transgender, M2F this time, but I have no qualms about including it here, because the woman at the center of the story is attracted to women.  A woman born into a man’s body who’s attracted to other women - this one definitely challenges all preconceptions of gender and sexuality.  If you can stomach the ending, it’s a hell of a book.

The Revolution of Little Girls, Blanche McCrary Boyd - **1/2

Blanche McCrary Boyd gets compared to Dorothy Allison a lot, because she writes about smart, sassy girls growing up lesbian in the South with a lot of bite and verve.  To my mind she’s not nearly as good as Allison; her storylines seem to lack focus, and I couldn’t quite get a grip on her characters.  But, again, a lot of people seem to disagree with me there.

Terminal Velocity, Blanche McCrary Boyd

Godspeed, Lynn Breedlove

Fast motorcycles, hard drugs, bad haircuts: there seems to be an increasing number of recent dykegrrl books based around these elements, and Lynn Breedlove’s is one of the more notable of these releases in the last few years.

Rubyfruit Jungle, Rita Mae Brown - ***

Rita Mae Brown writes in three different genres: Westerns, cat mysteries, and lesbian romances. She writes prolifically and, in many cases, unremarkably, which means it’s been hard for me to find summaries of all her books and figure out which ones are which.  Therefore, if you like Rubyfruit Jungle, I guess you can do further research on your own.  It’s considered a classic of lesbian lit, but that seems to be more contextual than anything else: it does represent a breakthrough in that, until Brown came along, lesbian lit as a genre was comprised almost entirely of dark, melodramatic novels detailing the shame of societal rejection.  When Brown tripped along with this cheerful story of a girl who’s set on doing what she wants to do and loving who she wants to love, it was a breath of fresh air.  It’s not fabulously written or anything, but it’s a good, quick read.

Pages for You, Sylvia Brownrigg - ****

A sweet, simple, and gorgeously written tale of a young college student’s first love and sexual awakening in a relationship with an older teaching fellow.  About the sexiest lesbian romance I’ve ever read, and certainly the smartest. Lambda winner.

The Metaphysical Touch, Sylvia Brownrigg

Less focused than Pages for You, maybe even slightly fatuous – or such was my impression at a glance.  It’s a story about two women who meet online and, through elliptical philosophical conversations, start falling for one another.  I think.  Brownrigg’s style in Pages for You only just avoids being pretentious in places; here, it doesn’t avoid it.

Macho Sluts, Pat Califia

Pat Califia, writing in the early ‘80s, stirred up whole ton of controversy for being essentially the first one to say to hell with political correctness, sadomasochism is hot.  Whether you like her stuff would depend largely on whether or not you agree.  I don’t, and her work does seem to suffer from its defiant spit-in-your-face rejection of PC taboos: yes, I see her point that the PCers get sanctimonious at times, but that doesn’t make mother-daughter bondage incest sexy or worth reading about.  I don’t know, the few stories I’ve read by her aren’t for me, but that’s a personal taste. At least her writing is okay.

The Hours, Michael Cunningham - ****

It’s kind of amusing that this, undoubtedly the most popular lesbian novel in recent memory, was written by a man.  You’ve almost certainly heard enough about the movie to make a plot summary kind of unnecessary, which is good, because it’s very hard to do.  For those of you who live under a rock, it’s a novel with three interlocking stories - about Virginia Woolf at the time of the writing of Mrs. Dalloway, and the ways in which Mrs. Dalloway resonates in the lives of two (lesbian) women, one living a miserable life as a 1950s housewife, the other caring for a friend with AIDS in 2001.  (Woo runon sentences.)  Cunningham is an amazing, amazing, amazingamazing writer, and this is an amazingamazing novel.

Crocodile Soup, Julia Darling - **

Forgettable story about a woman, an entomologist or archaeologist or museum curator or something, who falls for a younger girl, possibly a maid.  See, I’ve forgotten.

Leash, Jane DeLynn

More lesbian bondage sex; that’s all I can tell you, except that all of her stuff is in that vein.

In Thrall, Jane DeLynn

Don Juan in the Village, Jane DeLynn

Tea, Stacey D'Erasmo - ***

A quiet, beautifully written little novel about a girl’s quest to find a place in the world for herself in the wake of her mother’s suicide when she was ten.  (The girl, not the mother.)  D’Erasmo thanks Carol Anshaw for her guidance in the acknowledgments, and it’s interesting, because the introspective, evocative style and the lack of a driving plotline remind me a lot of Anshaw.  Anshaw’s much more blunt and wry, but there’s a definite similarity between them that I can’t quite tease out into words.

Stirfry, Emma Donoghue - ***

The first of Emma Donoghue’s novels, this is the story of a young college girl moving into a flat with two women she later discovers are lesbian lovers, and trying to come to terms with that and her own emerging sexuality. Not her best book, but I love, love, LOVE this woman. Out of print: try www.abebooks.com.  New/used/out of print books for cheap (no, I don’t work for them, I’m just a happy customer.) 

Hood, Emma Donoghue - ****

This is her best book.  Pen and Cara, in their late twenties, have been together for sixteen years when Cara is killed in a car accident.  The book traces the week following her death from Pen’s perspective, interspersed with flashbacks detailing their life together – their relationship was rocky, but their love was never in doubt.  Sexy, funny, wrenching, and wonderfully written.  Did I mention I love this woman?

Kissing the Witch, Emma Donoghue - ***1/2

Very different from any of her other work (actually, it’s all very diverse – she’s very versatile, I love this woman!), this is a series of short, haunting, intertwined retellings of fairy tales from feminist perspectives.  Marketed for the young adult audience, but it’s not really YA.

The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits, Emma Donoghue - ***

A collection of short stories Donoghue described as “the flotsam and jetsam of 600 years of history”.  Essentially, she takes tantalizing little bits of history (such as the story of a hoax a woman played in which she managed to convince half of England she had, literally, given birth to eleven rabbits) and builds short stories around them.  Engaging and readable, like all of Donoghue’s stuff.

Life Mask, Emma Donoghue, - ***1/2

Donoghue's newest, longest, and most intricately plotted, this is a fairly mammoth (650 pages) piece of historical fiction about London aristocracy in the late 1700s. It's a bit slow to get started in general - and for those of you who're reading for the lesbian content, yes, it is there, but you'll have to be patient, because it takes her a good 500 pages to get to the first *reference* to lesbian kissing, and another 75 pages for anything more substantial to happen. But I liked that, actually. Much as I love Sarah Waters, I've always thought it was a tiny bit too neat, how easily her Victorian heroines understand their feelings for one another and get involved with each other. I mean, not that they jump into bed the second they meet each other or anything, but I think Donoghue's take on it - that it takes these women literally years to come to terms with their feelings for each other, because strong affection is legitimized as "romantic friendship" and "Sapphic perversion" is completely taboo - is more realistic. The development of their relationship is wonderfully handled, I think, as is the rest of the book. Just don't give up if you find the first 50 or 75 pages to be slow going. It does pick up.Not yet published in the US; it will be published here in September, and until then it can be ordered from amazon.co.uk or amazon.ca.

Beyond the Pale, Elana Dykewomon - ***1/2

A big, sprawling, intergenerational epic of an immigrant family of Russian Jews struggling to make a life in turn-of-the-century New York. (Turn of the last century, that is.)  Good stuff.

Riverfinger Woman, Elana Dykewomon

Moon Creek Road, Elana Dykewomon - ***

These stories seem to walk the line between memoir and fiction: many of them trace different incidents in the life of the same woman, and the ones that don’t still have in common the theme of fat butch dykes (I mean no disrespect, I am one) struggling with knotty issues of life and love.  Dykewomon’s writing makes this a standout collection.

Stone Butch Blues, Leslie Feinberg - ***

There’s a good deal of comparison to be made between this and Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness - both demand to be read not for their literary merits, but for their groundbreaking advancement of their respective causes.  Back in the ‘20s, Hall demanded recognition and acceptance for lesbians; sixty years later, Feinberg demanded recognition and acceptance for transgenders.  It’s brutal, hard-hitting, and unfailingly honest.  Definitely give it a read. And it’s back in print as of 3/04!  Yay for Alyson Books!

Curious Wine, Katherine Forrest - **1/2

Lesbian Harlequin, with all that implies.  The sex scenes go on forever and are actually passably hot; the plot is hardly there and melodrama reigns, but who the hell cares?  If you’re into romance novels, try this one.

Daughters of a Coral Dawn, Katherine Forrest

This one is a classic of lesbian futuristic sci-fi romance, or so I’m told.  I didn’t know a genre that specific was allowed to have classics, but I guess it is.

No Turning Back, Estelle B. Freedman- ***

Crush, Jane Futcher - **

Right on the cusp of YA and adult designations, this is the story of a shy high schooler at an all-girl boarding school who falls hard for a charismatic but slightly dangerous classmate.  Not a bad read.

The Dyke and the Dybbuk, Ellen Galford - ***1/2

Definitely one of the most imaginative and original lesbian novels I’ve read.  It’s rooted in Jewish folklore: a dybbuk, apparently, is a sort of malevolent spirit which can be called down via curse to harry, torment, and generally make life hell for your enemies.  This particular dybbuk was set to wreak havoc on one particular family in the wake of a lesbian love affair turned sour, but she (the dybbuk) got imprisoned in a tree by a rabbi for three hundred years, interrupting her service.  When she gets let out by a bolt of lightning, she finds things ever so slightly changed: her employment firm has gone corporate (the hell’s-demons-meet-Dilbert scenes are hilarious) and the last descendant of the line she’s meant to persecute is an out-and-proud New York dyke who couldn’t care less about Orthodox tradition.  Seriously, seriously funny.  Read it.  Lambda winner.

The Fires of Bride, Ellen Galford - ***

A quieter novel, and the only one of Galford’s books that’s set in current day.  I know a lot of people like it, but it didn’t grab me: all I can remember about it was something about a woman falling for another woman in a manor in some ridiculously out-of-the-way place like Greenland or something.  I like her writing though.

Moll Cutpurse, Ellen Galford - ***

As rollicking and cheerful as The Dyke and the Dybbuk, if not quite as good, this one’s about a very unorthodox Elizabethan ruffian who makes her living picking the pockets of the rich and defending the rights of the poor.  It’s a fun read.

Annie on My Mind, Nancy Garden - ***1/2

Probably *the* classic lesbian YA novel, this is a sweet, innocent take on first love between two high school girls.  The ending is a little hokey, but it’s certainly the best young adult lesbian novel I know. 

Nora and Liz, Nancy Garden - **

…but then this one’s not nearly as good.  It’s about a developing love affair between a lonely city lesbian and a woman who’s spent all her life taking care of her invalid parents in a rural home without electricity or running water.  It suffers from the usual flaws in the lesbian romances I’ve read – the florid, passionate declarations of love without sufficient context to make them plausible, the I-know-you-are-my-forever-love-even-though-I-just-met-you-four-days-ago clichés.  But if that doesn’t bother you, go ahead and give it a try.

Bogeywoman, Jaimy Gordon - ***1/2

Calling this book “original” is sort of like calling Mt. Everest “an interesting rock formation”: yeah, okay, true, but it doesn’t give you much sense of the heart of the matter.  I can’t for the life of me find a better word, though.  It’s the story of a teenage girl, smart and defiant and utterly, uh, original, who starts self-injuring as she hits a rocky adolescence and consequently is sent to a mental ward.  There, the “dreambox mechanics” attempt – to no great effect - to cure her penchant for self-injury, her aversion to “icky frog dangles” (read: her lesbianism), and to a degree, her free spirit.  She falls in love with one of those same dreambox mechanics, which does far more for her mental health than the rules and carefully scripted therapy of the ward.  I have never encountered anything remotely like Gordon’s writing anywhere else – the plot gets weird near the end, but it’s still not a book to pass up.  Out of print.

She Drove Without Stopping, Jaimy Gordon

Shamp of the City-Solo, Jaimy Gordon

Half-Moon Scar, Allison Green - **

A woman settled in a comfortable relationship with a long-term partner finds herself reevaluating her life and her own self-injuring tendencies when, on a visit to her home town, she finds herself caring for an old gay friend who suffers from anorexia.

The Blue Place, Nicola Griffith

I’ve never read any of Griffith’s stuff, though I really should.  Katherine Forrest’s Daughters of a Coral Dawn is considered a classic mostly, I think, because it sort of gave birth to the lesbian sci-fi genre (or at least that’s my impression).  Griffith’s stuff, much of which is in the same genre, looks much better to me.  She’s done a few high-end lesbian mysteries too.  I believe this one is one of the mysteries.

Stay, Nicola Griffith

            Also a mystery.

Ammonite, Nicola Griffith

            Sci-fi.

Slow River, Nicola Griffith

            Also sci-fi.

Yin Fire, Alexandra Grilikhes

Don’t know anything about this except that it won a Lambda, which is supposed to be the biggest lesbian lit award.  Personally, I… don’t tend to agree with their judgment.  But that’s me.

The Well of Loneliness, Radclyffe Hall - **1/2

This is a tough one to review, because it is in equal parts an awful novel and, from a historical perspective, a must-read.  As mentioned before, as far as its literary merits are concerned, well, they’re scant.  The characters are cardboard cutouts, overblown caricatures, or both; the plot is mulishly pessimistic and depressing, pounding you over the head with the pain and misery of the “sexual invert’s” life.  At the same time, it was literally the first mainstream novel which ever addressed the subject of lesbianism head-on, and Radclyffe Hall certainly paid for it: the scandal and censorship which followed its publication sounded the death knell of a promising literary career.  I know a whole ton of people who hate it, and I can’t really argue with them too strenuously, but I still think it needs to be read.

The Unlit Lamp, Radclyffe Hall - ***

In terms of literary value, this is so much better than Well of Loneliness that I couldn’t believe it.  I guess it’s because here she was trying to write a novel, where Well was more political polemic than anything else.  This was published a few years before Well, and the lesbian content is encoded: the story centers around the strong mutual devotion of a maturing girl and her childhood tutor, which is quashed by the girl’s gentle tyrant of a mother.  The relationship between Joan and Elizabeth is what the generation preceding Hall would have called “romantic friendship”, rather than explicitly (or even implicitly) sexual.  Nevertheless, when you read it in conjunction with Well, you get a broader perspective, as well as a good novel. Out of print.

The Merchant of Venus, Ellen Hart

The Price of Salt, Patricia Highsmith - ***1/2

Highsmith is mostly known for her mainstream mystery novels (Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr. Ripley), and she’s considered one of the preeminent masters of that genre.  In her private life, she was a closeted lesbian, and this – the only lesbian novel she ever wrote – was published under the pen name Claire Morgan during her lifetime.  The romance takes forfreakinever to get going, and then when it does, it quickly morphs into a semisuspenseful story of spies and persecution.  Still, the woman knows how to Write. Back in print as of 3/04.

Afterimage, Helen Humphreys - ***

An unlikely love triangle develops between an amateur artist, her husband, and their maid and (portrait) sitter.  It’s a good book, but I don’t know what’s happened to the availability: at the Barnes and Noble warehouses, anyway, it hasn’t been available for months now.  Try an independent store, and if you can’t get it from them, go abebooks. 

Substitute for Love, Karin Kallmaker - *1/2

…oh dear.  Okay, so, this was another Lambda winner, I believe, which means somewhere, somebody liked it – maybe even a few somebodies.  They are responsible for the half star there.  Admittedly, I’m not much into romance novels, but even as romances go, this was just bad.  My girlfriend and I have nicknamed this “the button book” because of a slight oddness in the sex scenes: apparently the only way Kallmaker knows of advancing such scenes is to undo more buttons – a few buttons to start the scene, then a few more after the first kiss, then a few more as things heat up, and a few more, and a few more… If you put it all together, it adds up to, well, lots of buttons.  The only thing we could figure is that all of these women are wearing knee-length button-down shirts with the buttons sewn on every quarter-inch.  It seems strange attire for leather-jacketed diesel dykes, but that’s the least of this book’s problems.  Soppy, melodramatic, and wildly out of touch with reality: Kallmaker seriously advances the theory that lesbianism is “genetic”, in the sense that lesbians are born to lesbian mothers.  Blaaaaaaaah.  Kallmaker’s written a bunch of other lesbian romances, but I haven’t bothered to look up the titles.  I think they’re popular, but they’re sure not for me.

Trace Elements of Random Tea-Parties, Felicia Luna Lemus

Flaming Iguanas, Erika Lopez

All of Erika Lopez’s stuff is sort of a cross between novel and comic book format, and it’s generally about young rebel dykes striking out and blazing their own trail across American society.  Or such has been my impression.  Haven’t read her.  She’s won some Lammies though.

They Call Me Mad Dog!, Erika Lopez

Hoochie Mama: The Other White Meat, Erika Lopez

As the Crow Flies, Ann-Marie MacDonald - ***

Fall on Your Knees, Ann-Marie MacDonald - ***

Gothic, epic, and crazily convoluted, this first novel traces one family’s fortunes through three generations of pivotal Canadian history spanning the turn of the century.

Good Night Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet, Ann-Marie MacDonald - ***

Vastly different from Fall on Your Knees, this is a purely gleeful parody of Shakespearean conventions of love at first sight and all that.  A prim modern-day Shakespearean scholar is transported into her anthology of his plays, where she becomes embroiled in the struggles of the characters, attempts to help Desdemona out of the predicament with Othello, and is romantically pursued by both Romeo and Juliet.  (I always *said* they would have lasted about a week and a half if they hadn’t killed themselves.)  Very funny, very cute.

The Case of the Not-So-Nice Nurse: A Cherry Aimless/Nancy Clue Mystery, Mabel Maney - ***

A great parody on the stilted prose and goody-two-shoes outlook of the Nancy Drew and Cherry Ames series of the sixties, in which Nancy and Cherry hook up and solve a mystery which is peopled at every turn with colorful dykes.  You have to have read at least some Nancy Drew and/or Cherry Ames books when you were a kid to get the parody, but it’s great fun if you were ever into that genre.

The Case of the Good-for-Nothing Girlfriend, Mabel Maney

            More of the same.

Kiss the Girls and Make Them Spy: A Jane Bond Adventure, Mabel Maney

This one’s a James Bond parody.  When Bond himself suffers a nervous breakdown, his competent lesbian sister Jane is called in to do his job for him.  (Including the hypersexual seduction of women, of course.)  I don’t read James Bond novels so I don’t know how effective the parody is, but it’s a fun concept.

Mirrors, Marianne Martin

A lesbian romance, and apparently a pretty popular one.  The fact that Marianne Martin is so often mentioned in the same sentence as Karin Kallmaker makes me suspicious, but a lot of people do seem to like this one.  I’ve never been able to get a hold of it myself; I think it’s going out of print.

Some Girls, Kristin McCloy - **

Mediocre novel about a rural girl who moves to the big city and falls for oh-so-chic and sophisticated downstairs neighbor, who turns out to be a stripper.  I would try to avoid spoiling that big plot twist, except that the “clues” were so ham-handed that I thought it was just a given that of course she was a stripper; I was confused to no end when it came as this big “revelation.”  This is another one that gets better reviews than I think are warranted.

Shockproof Sydney Skate, Marijane Meaker

Patience and Sarah, Isabel Miller - **

Another early “classic” of lesbian lit.  You hear this mentioned a lot alongside Well of Loneliness, but I don’t see it – God knows Isabel Miller was never shooting for the sort of career that Radclyffe Hall could have had.  This is another one that just didn’t hold me at all: it’s a historical novel about these pioneer women in the 1700s who strike out from their Puritan society to forge their own path in the wilderness.  The narrator is sort of engaging, but her paramour is little more than all the worst clichés of the lumbering butch rolled into one big ball o’ stereotype.  I passed on finishing it. Out of print. 

Cool for You, Eileen Myles

The Best Short Stories of Leslea Newman, Leslea Newman

Can’t review the collection because I’ve only read one or two short stories by her, plus Heather Has Two Mommies (so CUTE!); but the couple of stories I’ve read have been pretty good.

Girls Will Be Girls, Leslea Newman

Days of Awe, Achy Obejas

            Another Lambda winner.

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, ZZ Packer - ***

Keeping You a Secret, Julie Anne Peters - **

A YA novel about – you guessed it! – a shy high school girl who falls for an out-and-proud, charismatic classmate, with disastrous results.  I guess there are so few YA lesbian novels that the lack of diversity among them is only to be expected.

The Leather Daddy and the Femme, Carol Queen

            Butch dykes and drag queens and sex, oh my!

The Friendly Young Ladies, Mary Renault

This is another one I really need to read – I loved Renault’s historical fiction when I was younger.  Written in the ‘40s, it’s a more lighthearted take on the subject of lesbian “inversion” than had been seen before, centering around a sister’s surprise when she finds her sister living in a lesbian relationship and the chain of events that that revelation kicks off.  Damn, I need to read this, like, tomorrow.

The Female Man, Joanna Russ - **1/2

More lesbian sci-fi.  If I were into sci-fi, this would doubtless have held my attention, but I’m just not that into the genre in general.  Anyway, what I got up to the point where I lost interest is that it’s about a woman from another planet who gets beamed to earth somehow (wasn’t clear on that); her society has long since eliminated men, surgically transforming eggs into sperm in order to procreate.  I don’t know whether they actually eliminated them or whether they were just never part of the equation to begin with; probably, since these are humanoid women, they were a lesbian colony that fled earth when they’d had enough of men.  Fun concept… I don’t know why I didn’t like it, actually.

The Education of Harriet Hatfield, May Sarton - ***

A sweet, demure little novel about a woman who loses her longterm partner after forty years together.  She decides to carry on her lover’s legacy by opening a bookstore for women, but unfortunately, she chooses to do so in a conservative, bluecollar neighborhood on the outskirts of Boston.  The bookstore’s not specifically lesbian, but word gets out that she is, and a homophobic backlash ensues.  Meanwhile, she finds herself taking a long look at the ivory tower in which she lived with her lover for all those years, and the complications of interacting with a world that isn’t always understanding or accepting.  This book made me take a long look, as well, at the way I behave as a lesbian in the wider world; my reaction’s way too complicated to go into here, but I’d be interested to know how other people responded.

They Say She Tastes Like Honey, Michelle Sawyer

            A relatively light, hip new novel about a city butch in her 40s finding her way through life and love.

Like, Ali Smith - ***

Just started this one, which was highly recommended to me by a friend. All I can tell about it so far is that it’s about a mother and a daughter, and that the daughter is the cutest thing ever.  Ali Smith can be so endearing. Out of print.

Free Love and Other Stories, Ali Smith - ***

A selection of blunt, quirky, and often sexy short stories.  The titular story, about a girl’s sexual awakening at the hands of a high-class prostitute, is one of my favorite short stories ever.

Hotel World, Ali Smith - ***1/2

The spirit of a young girl, killed in a fall down an elevator shaft, haunts a hotel and the intertwining lives of the guests who stay there.  This woman is a hell of a writer.

The Whole Story and Other Stories, Ali Smith - ****

I've never been all that much into experimental fiction, but if it was all like this I'd never read anything else. Lesbians fall in love with trees. They run into Death on the subway (and only recognize him, a pudgy balding middle-aged man, because their cell phones stop working around him.) They build, and sail, small skiffs made entirely out of glued-together used copies of The Great Gatsby. In general, they have wacky shit happen to them, and it all comes together in one of the best-written, most entertaining reads I've come across in a very long time.

Shy Girl, Elizabeth Stark

This I know almost nothing about, because it’s out of print, and thus I have no access to it at my job. It’s been highly recommended to me by several people, though, so I’m including it here.

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein- ***

I have read Gertrude Stein, but man, she's a bitch to attempt to summarize. I'm sure I'll figure something out eventually, but for now, two things: 1.) she's impossible, and 2.) read her. (As a corollary to 2.) - read her aloud while pacing around the room; make sure, timewise, that you can devote roughly an hour to every paragraph; and yes, it is her and not you.) o:p>

QED, Gertrude Stein- ***

P-Town, Lisa Stocker

            Light, irreverent, trashy fun about the sexual liaisons of four 20-something Provincetown lesbians on a road trip.  

Burning the Sea, Sarah Pemberton Strong

Wives of Bath, Susan Swan - ***

This is the basis for the movie Lost and Delirious, but the plot similarities are virtually nil, and it’s hard to summarize the plot without spoiling the plot twists.  Suffice it to say that it’s about a young crippled girl nicknamed Mouse, her transition to an all-girl boarding school, and her relationship with her two roommates.  (No, the plot twist is not a threesome.)  Out of print in the U.S.; try ordering from a Canadian or UK bookseller, or go with abebooks.

The Girls in 3-B, Valerie Taylor

Another ‘50s lesbian pulp novel, recently reprinted.  I believe this one is also about girls at a boarding school (common theme).

Valencia, Michelle Tea - *1/2

Okay, so, this is one more author on whom the critics and I diverge sharply.  Along the lines of Breedlove’s Godspeed, it’s about one girl’s uncensored romantic/sexual adventures in the dyke underworld of… L.A.?  Seattle?  I forget.  Whatever it is, it could have stood being a little less uncensored, mostly because the sex scenes are… just… not well-handled.  Maybe it’s personal taste, I don’t know.  I was grossed out early on and never finished it.

Choices, Nancy Toder

            More lesbian romance of the Harlequin sort.

House of Stairs, Barbara Vine - ***1/2

I’m giving this three and a half stars even though I haven’t gotten a hold of it yet, because Barbara Vine is Ruth Rendell’s pen name and Ruth Rendell is the coolest mystery novelist ever.Out of print. 

Light, Coming Back, Ann Wadsworth

            Lambda winner.

The Color Purple, Alice Walker - ***1/2

A young black girl, a victim of horrible childhood abuse, finds new liberation and joy in her relationship with a free-spirited blues singer.  One hell of a book.

Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters - ****

Arguably *the* classic contemporary lesbian novel – although maybe it’s a stretch to call it contemporary, since it’s set in the 1880s or ‘90s.  It’s about a girl who falls in love with a cross-dressing music hall singer, and runs away to join her act.  The novel traces her fortunes as she explores London’s lesbian underworld and – dare I say it? – her own sexuality and soul. ;)  Okay, so it sounds silly, but it’s so well-done, and so much fun.

Affinity, Sarah Waters - ***1/2

Darker than Tipping the Velvet, this is the story of a girl who’s attempting to mend a broken heart (her “romantic friend” went off and got married) by doing community service at a local women’s prison.  There, she finds herself becoming obsessed with a prisoner with a penchant for the mystical who claims she was wrongly imprisoned.  Gothic, creepy, and delicious.

Fingersmith, Sarah Waters - ****

And darker and more Gothic still, this book is so twisted and convoluted that I couldn’t even attempt to summarize it.  It may be her best, though.  Compulsively readable and a little bit pulpy; such good stuff.

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson - ***

For all that Jeanette Winterson is Everyone’s Favorite Lesbian Postmodernist, I’ve never taken that well to her.  This is Everyone’s Favorite Novel From Everyone’s Favorite Postmodernist, but I didn’t take that well to it either.  It’s her first novel, and probably her most linear, about a young girl growing up lesbian in a wacky fundamentalist family.  It’s got some fun lines and paragraphs, maybe even a chapter or two, but… I don’t know.  She’s just not for me, I guess.

The Passion, Jeanette Winterson - ***1/2

I liked this much better than Oranges, although I still have my issues with it.  It’s about a cook in Napoleon’s army who falls in love with one of the concubines (or whatever the contemporary term would have been), who, in turn, left her heart (literally) with a mysterious married woman in Venice.  This is where I’d start with Winterson, and I suppose if you’re really into lesbian lit you ought to give her a try.

Gut Symmetries, Jeanette Winterson - **

One problem that almost everyone acknowledges with Jeanette Winterson – this is not just my problem – is that as she’s gained in confidence, she’s apparently decided that every thought she has that is remotely paradoxical, metaphysical, or philosophical is worth recording, regardless of how random or inscrutable it is.  (In fact, the more inscrutable, the better.)  This is one of her books that’s come under most fire for that.  She still has her Sentences and Paragraphs, but they’re sort of drowning in a morass of look-at-how-smart-I-am!

The Powerbook, Jeanette Winterson - **

What my boss terms “the book that made everyone hate Jeanette Winterson”, this one is even more relentelessly inscrutable than Gut Symmetries, or so I’m told.  It’s about an online love affair between two women with a strange philosophical bent; actually, it sounds a little bit like The Metaphysical Touch, come to think about it.

Orlando, Virginia Woolf - ****

Virginia Woolf wrote this for Vita Sackville-West, but since she was writing in the ‘20s and ‘30s (don’t know exactly when this was written), the lesbian content is encoded, and the gender of the protagonist is fluid.  Thus, at the beginning he’s a dandy 16-year-old Elizabethan nobleman, and as the novel progresses (over several hundred years) the gender shifts, winding up with a contemporary 36-year old woman.  And, I mean, it’s Virginia Woolf.

Am I Blue? A YA compilation of fiction, essays, and poetry - ***

            Can’t remember the editor of this, and can’t find it online, but it’s a young adult anthology of short pieces about coming out and dealing with being gay in high school.  It’s been highly recommended to me.