Lesbian and/or Feminist Literature and Writing

[Front-Ranger]

What are your thoughts on the book Middlesex? I read an excerpt from it that was very good. I understand that John Gallagher was reading it recently.

[Brown Eyes]

What are your thoughts on the book Middlesex? I read an excerpt from it that was very good. I understand that John Gallagher was reading it recently.

I think I've heard the title Middlesex... but I don't know much about it.  It features lesbian characters?   Tell us more Bud!

[Brown Eyes]

Heya!

Well, I've been done with Lonesome Dove for a while now.  And, I'm back to the pursuit of good lesbian books and short stories.  Recently, I ordered the
Penguin Book Of Lesbian Short Stories by Reynolds, Margaret, recommended earlier in this thread.  So, I'll look forward to that arriving.

I actually have a copy of Stone Butch Blues somewhere that an ex-girlfriend once gave me long, long ago.  I've never read it yet though.

So, to keep the recommendations going here... I thought I'd post about a classic: The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall (1928)

I have an old paper back copy of it that was put out in 1981 and this is what the blurb on the back says:

"She was named Stephen by the adoring daddy to whom she was 'all the son I have.' Her mother detested the raffish little tomboy, who was driven from Morton Hall and her family's aristocratic soceity, into the fashionable lesbian world of 1920s Paris.  In her day, an 'indecent' woman who pursued sexual needs - of any kind - was condemned to tragedy.  Stephen's first love, for a frivolous American girl, ended bitterly.  And when Stephen found the love of her life, she had to sacrifice the woman to a man who could offer respectability.
---
The Well of Loneliness was instantly banned on two continents but the literary world's reaction was favorable.  The New Republic said, 'Miss Hall's treatement of her subject, serious, honest and dignified, is a challenge to the crude mind of a class which sees no solution of social problems except prohibition and censorship.' The Saturday Review said, ' Miss Hall's appeal is a powerful one, and it is supported by passages of great force and beauty.' The New Statesman called it 'a brave book,' while The New York Herald Tribune praised its 'passionate plea for the world's understanding and sympathy.' Today, this haunting novel is judged one of the finest portraits of women in love ever created.'"

Re-reading the blurb about this makes me want to re-read this book.  It's been a long time.

[Brown Eyes]

Heya,
I'm back to recommend a fun, "gossipy" book about lesbians in the film industry and historic Hollywood.  I remember coming across this book when I was a TA for a couple film history/theory courses in graduate school.

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/6657222-674.jpg" border="0" />

It's called The Girls: Sappho Goes to Hollywood by Diana McLellan (2000)

And, here's the blurb from Amazon:

From Publishers Weekly
Chill out, Ellen and Anne: flagrant lesbianism has been afoot in Hollywood for decades. This saucily written look at the lives of prominent lesbian and bisexual actresses from the 1920s to the '40s brings together old facts and gossip with new details and a cohesive analysis of the relationships between sexuality, feminism and power in the film industry. Drawing on standard biographiesAsuch as Gavin Lambert's Nazimova, Maria Riva's Dietrich, Brendan Gill's Tallulah and Barry Paris's GarboAas well as interviews, trade and movie magazines and studio publicity, McLellan focuses mainly on the lives of Garbo, Dietrich, Mercedes De Acosta and their circles. While the writing has a tinge of movie magazine breathlessness (e.g., "When Mercedes drove Greta to the studio for the first day's shooting on Conquest, Greta was in tears"), McLellan has an astute eye for psychological detail and a fine sense of industry power plays. Most importantly, this syndicated columnist and editor at Ladies' Home Journal understands that these women's sexuality and their innumerable affairs, flirtations and romances were not exotic, superficial dalliances, but integral to their lives, identities and art. Although basic information about Garbo, Dietrich and De Acosta has been available in the past, McLellan's investigations into such varied topics as Salka Viertel's political interests and Tallulah Bankhead's career and her affair with Hattie McDonald, bring a broader context and new sense of scholarship to the subject.

[Lumière]

She has an upcoming novel called Risk, set for release in April 2009.




From Amazon.com:
Risk is a beautifully told story that spans the years from the mid-eighties to the post-9/11 world. Carol is an idealistic, Berkeley-educated, Jewish lesbian living in Oakland, California. Downwardly mobile, the Berkeley grad makes her living by tutoring high school students. Through Carol’s life, Dykewomon explores the changing times and values in America.

This book is finally available to order.
In fact, I received my copy from Amazon today.
I've been looking forward to this since I saw it listed on amazon a while ago. 

[Brown Eyes]

This book is finally available to order.
In fact, I received my copy from Amazon today.
I've been looking forward to this since I saw it listed on amazon a while ago. 

Thanks for reviving this thread Milli!

I can't believe the last post before yours was from February!

Anyway, I'm excited to read more of this author's writing too.  So thanks for the heads up!   It'll be on my list after reading the new Waters book.

[sel]

Hi Lumière and Amanda,

I am new to gay literature. So far I have read BbM and The Front Runner. Have never read a  lesbian themed story. What would you recommend my first one be?
I own the DVD of Aimée and Jaguar, it was reccomended to me on the BbM  IMDb board  as the feminine equivalent to BbM in terms of a powerful and very well made movie. I liked the film, although I ought to watch it again, I have a few questions about it, but I wouldn't be interested in reading the book.

Thank you.

[Brown Eyes]

Hi Lumière and Amanda,

I am new to gay literature. So far I have read BbM and The Front Runner. Have never read a  lesbian themed story. What would you recommend my first one be?
I own the DVD of Aimée and Jaguar, it was reccomended to me on the BbM  IMDb board  as the feminine equivalent to BbM in terms of a powerful and very well made movie. I liked the film, although I ought to watch it again, I have a few questions about it, but I wouldn't be interested in reading the book.

Thank you.

Hi sel!!  It's nice to see you on this thread Bud!

I really liked the film of Aimée and Jaguar and I own a copy.  I haven't watched it for a while, but I think it's very well done.  I have the book too, and it's very, very poignant.  Of course, it's such a tragic true story.  In a way, the book reads and feels more like non-fiction (which it is). 

What are your questions about the film?  It might be fun to have a discussion about it.

You may have noticed our other thread in Culture Tent about the books (and films) of Sarah Waters http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,16313.0.html .  She's a really talented, contemporary writer who writes very compelling novels with historical settings that usually involve a lesbian protagonists.  Part of her goal, at least in several of her earliest books, seems to be to re-insert lesbian figures into the types of stories and literature that usually, historically has erased or excluded gay characters and perspectives.

I'd recommend starting with Sarah Water's book called Tipping the Velvet.  It's the book that caused Waters to become well-known and it's a very fun book... as well as very well-written.  Of her books, it's the one that focuses the most on the issue of being a lesbian (lesbian identity,etc.), relationships, lesbian society and culture (in 19th century England/ London). 

Some of her other books have lesbian characters, while at the same time the issue of "being a lesbian" isn't necessarily the main theme or subject. 

There are lots of classic lesbian books out there, but I really would suggest starting with Tipping the Velvet I think. 

[Lumière]

Howdy Sel,

My first recommendation would have to be one of my fave books by Sarah Waters.
A very (very) good place to start.. 


Tipping the Velvet





From Amazon.com
The heroine of Sarah Waters's audacious first novel knows her destiny, and seems content with it. Her place is in her father's seaside restaurant, shucking shellfish and stirring soup, singing all the while. "Although I didn't long believe the story told to me by Mother--that they had found me as a baby in an oyster-shell, and a greedy customer had almost eaten me for lunch--for eighteen years I never doubted my own oysterish sympathies, never looked far beyond my father's kitchen for occupation, or for love." At night Nancy Astley often ventures to the nearby music hall, not that she has illusions of being more than an audience member. But the moment she spies a new male impersonator--still something of a curiosity in England circa 1888--her years of innocence come to an end and a life of transformations begins.

Tipping the Velvet, all 472 pages of it, is as saucy, as tantalizing, and as touching as the narrator's first encounter with the seductive but shame-ridden Miss Kitty Butler. And at first even Nancy's family is thrilled with her gender-bending pal, all but her sister, best friend, and bedmate, Alice, "her eyes shining cold and dull, with starlight and suspicion." Not to worry. Soon Nancy and Kitty are off to London, their relationship close though (alas for our heroine) sisterly. We know that bliss will come, and it does, in an exceptionally charged moment. A lesser author would have been content to stop her story there, but Waters has much more in mind for her buttonholing heroine, and for us. In brief, her Everywoman with a sexual difference goes from success onstage to heartbreak to a stint as a male prostitute (necessity truly is the mother of invention) to keeping house for a brother and sister in the Labour movement. And did I mention her long stint as a plaything in the pleasure palace of a rich Sapphist extraordinaire? Diana Lethaby is as cruel as she is carnal, and even the well-concealed Cavendish Ladies' Club isn't outré enough for her. Kitting Nancy out in full, elegant drag, she dares the front desk to turn them away. "We are here," she mocks, "for the sake of the irregular."

Only after some seven years of hard twists and sensual turns does Nancy conclude that a life of sensation is not enough. Still, Tipping the Velvet is so entertaining that readers will wish her sentimental--and hedonistic--education had taken twice as long. --Kerry Fried

[Lumière]

Amanda, your post came in same time as mine.

Motion carried unanimously - Tipping the Velvet is the best start.