THE LESBIAN EDITION
OF BOOKS TO WATCH OUT FOR
April 2004
Volume 1 Number 5
In this issue…
NEWS
- The Lesbian Novel in the White House
- Campaign for Reader Privacy
- A few more notes
- Awards
BOOKS
- Find of the Month
- Literary Blooms
- Three for Tea
- Take Back Your Life
- Of Lives and Literature...
- Womanly Affection...
- Social Science
- Politics
- More on Marriage
- What They Are Reading
- The Crime Scene
- Now in Paper
- Books To Watch Out For
- Awards
Books reviewed in this issue -->
http://www.btwof.com/enews_extras/Images5LES/5LES_BookList.html
Super Printer-Friendly Text-Only Version
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THE LESBIAN NOVEL IN THE WHITE HOUSE
With the publication of Bushwomen
(reviewed below --> #Bushwomen), Laura Flanders broke the story:
Lynne Cheney has a lesbian novel in
her closet.
Yes, that Lynne Cheney, Mrs. Dick
Vice President Cheney.
Originally published in 1981,
Sisters was, in Flander’s words, “a breathy, gothic romance, horribly
written.... celebrating lesbian love and promot[ing] the value of preventative
devices – condoms – to women who want to remain free...all this by Lynne
Cheney, the culture warrior of the right.” (
Needless to say, jaws dropped.
In St. Louis, Left Bank Books’ Kris
Kleindienst announced that the store would donate 10% of the book’s sales to a
scholarship fund to send gay youth to NGLTF’s Creating Change conference,
saying, “What better way to foster educational opportunities for the younger
generation of LGBT people than to raise money through the sale of Lynne’s lost
life chapter? We’re promoting patriotism by promoting shopping and leaving no
LGBT child behind.” Two hundred patrons signed up to make their contribution.
But back in Washington, where Lynne
and Dick seem unable to stand up for marriage rights for their daughter Mary
and her partner, and where both women seem to have disappeared from the
campaign trail, there was decidedly less enthusiasm for the project.
Despite the fact that this would
seem to be a literary matter, we’re told that it was Cheney’s high-powered
lawyer, Robert Barnett, who made a “friendly” call to Penguin and that it took
less than an hour for Penguin to decide not to publish the book after all. Both
Penguin and Barnett stressed that it was a very friendly and above-board
conversation with no threats of legal action. (Which would, at least have been
interesting, since Penguin does appear to own the rights.)
Was the republication of the book,
with its enthusiasm for lesbian relationships, birth control devices and safe
sex, perhaps a bit of an embarrassment to the Bush/Cheney ticket, what with
their anti-gay constitutional amendment, anti-abortion, anti-condom,
anti-woman, “health care” politics and all? Naw
Why would anyone think that?
“Mrs. Cheney just doesn’t think it
represents her best efforts as a writer,” was the line from Cheney spokeswoman
Natalie Rule.
Um hmm.
Or as Kris Kleindienst said, on
hearing the news, “If [Penguin] caves in on this, what does that say about what
they’ll do on more important books?”
Truth be told, lesbians had only bit
parts in the book. The heroine, though a bit envious of the lesbian couple's
intimacy, was more interested in heterosex on bear rugs, albeit with “sheaths.”
Still, the bodice ripper was ahead of its time in terms of its options for women.
One has to wonder what made Lynne give up her feminist vision and passion for
justice for women?
“The note was short. ‘Helen, my joy
and my beloved,’ it began. ‘Why do we stay? I have no reason beyond a few
pupils who would miss me briefly, and your life would be infinitely better away
from him. Let us go away together, away from the anger and the imperatives of
men.
We shall find ourselves a secluded
bower where they dare not venture.
There will only be the two of us,
and we shall linger through long afternoons of sweet retirement. In the
evenings I shall read to you while you do your cross-stitch in the firelight.
And then we shall go to bed, our bed, my dearest girl....”
Read more and check out the
back-cover blurb at http://WhiteHouse.org/administration/sisters.asp.
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THE CAMPAIGN FOR READER PRIVACY
I’m not big on online petitions, but
this one’s an exception: The Campaign for Reader Privacy – sponsored by the
American Booksellers Association, The American Library Association, and PEN
American – is collecting signatures in bookstores, libraries, and online to
urge Congress to restore safeguards for reader privacy that were eliminated by
Section 215 of the Patriot Act.
This section gave the FBI vastly
expanded authority to search business records, including records from
bookstores and libraries. It allows the FBI to request the records secretly,
without having to convince a judge that there’s probable cause to believe the
person whose records are being examined has committed a crime, and prohibits
the booksellers or librarians served with an FBI demand for a reader’s records
from telling anyone – partner, lawyer, colleague, or the person whose records
were taken, that it happened.
The petition – and the entire
campaign – is about restoring confidence that our reading choices aren’t – and
won’t be – monitored by the government.
Find more information or sign the petition at http://www.readerprivacy.com --> http://www.readerprivacy.com/.
A FEW MORE NOTES before the books
begin....
Do women write better novels than
men? That’s an old question, but Times Literary Supplement Editor Ferdinand
Mount weighs in with an unexpected opinion at http://www.persephonebooks.co.uk/pq/mount.htm.
If you’re in
It’s an exhibition of 200+ books –
mostly LGBT titles and women’s health books – that had been severely
vandalized. Rather than throwing them away,
It’s a great strategy for
transforming this particular form of hate crime into something vibrant and
affirming.
A special thanks to publisher Bella
Books --> http://www.bellabooks.com/
for including our fliers in their recent mailings. –And my thanks to everyone
who has waited, however impatiently, for this issue
Yours in spreading the words,
Carol
••••••••••••••••••
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FIND OF THE MONTH
I had a hard time finding my way into TRACE
ELEMENTS OF RANDOM TEA PARTIES. I kept starting it but reading it was like
trying to dance to music with an unfamiliar beat. Tantalizing. Irresistible, but
I was clearly missing some moves.
Finally I asked a friend to read the
first few paragraphs to me. She gave me that
What’s-wrong-with-you-but-we’ve-been-friends-for-along-time-so-I-will
look and proceeded to give me the
syntax and rhythm I’d been missing.
“I might as well tell you right now
that this is really about my girl Weeping Woman, Nana, and me,” TRACE ELEMENTS
begins. “My best boy, Nolan, she says listening to me is like letting a drunk
drive you to a gala event – no indicators given at turns and the windshield
wipers are always on. Buckle up, doll. I promise I’ll try not to tangle your
quinceañera dress. We’ll get to the ballroom soon enough…."
Then I asked the pronoun question:
“So when she says ‘my best boy, Nolan’ she means her best (girl) friend?” I
asked. “More like ‘your best butch buddy,’” my friend replied. But even as I
was thinking, “OK,” I could see a lecture forming in her mouth: “You know some
people find that ‘lesbian’ is a tired old word. Now-a-days girls will be boys
when they want to....” But I already knew that, I just needed to learn how to
follow TRACE ELEMENT’s pronouns. Weeping Woman, I already knew, was that spirit
of discontent that can appear, at a moment’s notice, in anyone’s culture.
That’s all it took to get the moves
in my body. I started at page one again and let Felicia Luna Lemus dance me
through Leticia’s world view for 247 pages, visiting her nana, (“My
great-grandmother was something fierce strong.”), and the LA dyke’s cast of
friends and lovers and too-soon-to-be ex’s. The language was irresistible, and
the story rarely faltered. And I came away with a renewed affection for this
generation of dykelets who learned the useful skill of pronoun shifting the way
my generation learned to change tires. Women in their twenties and thirties
won’t need a moment’s introduction to this exquisite novel. $23. Farrar, Straus
and Giroux.
“Put simple, (the solteros) hung out
in [Nana’s] store looking for the México they held in their hearts, where their
families were, where all their money earned went to, where their skin was
common and their tongue understood – the solteros stood around in the store
smoking cigarettes to try to find home…. Some serious cowboy tears would have
been shed if that generation of solteros had stayed in town long enough to
learn that eventually their habits stomped out Mamá Estrella’s story-telling
voice.”
“Strong presence is family to me…so
it was only natural that Vivienne became a good buddy super quick. Didn’t hurt
any when she said Rob was a complicated mess of a boy. I kept buying Viv drinks
just to hear stories about how problematic Rob has always been. She huffed and
puffed and blew Rob’s persona down.”
“The brink of dreams was the only
time [Edith] ever talked and she didn’t really want answers, so all I had to do
was give her my one easy-to-remember-even-when-about-to fall-asleep line and
let her continue to get the tension out of her mouth….”
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••••••••••••••••••
BLOOMING
The first issue of BLOOM, the new,
eagerly awaited LGBT literary journal, is out – and what a wealth of both
literary and production delights it is
The cover is beautiful, the design clean, and the visual art, well
produced. Just holding the issue (which is actually a 150-page book) is the
first pleasure; inside there’s short fiction by Stacey D’Erasmo, Judith
Nichols, and Andrew Holleran, visual art by Amy Goldstein and Ken Chu, and
poetry by Adrienne Rich, Eileen Myles, Cheryl Clark, Beatrix Gates, Minnie
Bruce Pratt, and Chrystos, as well as Mark Doty, Edward Field, and nineteen
others.
Bloom’s goal is to nurture LGBT
writers and artists and to foster the appreciation of queer literature and
creation.
“BLOOM does not discriminate against
the imagination. Gardeners must identify as Queer (LGBT), but the flora of
their labor need not serve any pre-conceived notion of beauty. Peonies, sweet
Williams, ragweed, and gladiolas – every shade & shape of blossom – are all
welcome. Let the garden grow.”
Submission details on the web site. Edited by
Charles Flowers.
Single issues are the bargain of the
year at $10, subscriptions are $20/year. Bloom,
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••••••••••••••••••
THREE FOR TEA
Congratulations to the prolific
Michelle Tea. Tea, who is something of a cheerleader and documentarian for the
world of tattooed, pierced, politicized and sex-radical queer grrls and boys,
has three new books this spring: two anthologies and a collection of poetry.
She’s loved for her vision, for her
support of other writers, for her autobiographical tales, and for selecting the
tales in Best Lesbian Erotica 04 ($14.95 Cleis).
Click to the “What They’re Reading
at Wild Iris” (below) for a review
--> #Tea2 of THE BEAUTIFUL. Tea’s
new poetry collection. The title
poem, by the way, is a strangely
comforting read on Election Day.
WITHOUT A NET: THE FEMALE EXPERIENCE
OF GROWING UP WORKING CLASS stole my heart in an instant with its gutsy
collection of truth-tales from real women’s lives. No sob stories here: just
riveting detail, honest reality, and, yes, tenderness. But Tea says it best:
“The tragedy isn’t [these women’s] poverty, it’s what happens to them because
of their poverty, the way the world judges and despises them, fights and blames
them, makes their lives plenty hard....”
Irresistibly readable, inherently
feminist, and the contributors range from Dorothy Allison to Meliza Bañales,
from Terry Ryan to Diane di Prima and Eileen Myles, and include a number of new
writers to watch out for. What could be better? $14.95, Seal Press/Live Girls
Series.
If you want something edgy, dark,
and troubling, turn to PILLS, THRILLS, CHILLS, AND HEARTACHE: ADVENTURES IN THE
FIRST PERSON, edited by Michelle Tea and Clint Catalyst, for a mixed-gender
collection of scary, funny, chaotic – and sometimes poignant – true-life
adventures in the contemporary counter-culture. The screaming intelligence of
this collection competes with angst, abuse, bulimia, cruelty, and drugs (and
that’s just the beginning). These more-and-less kinky, gut-wrenching, and
occasionally cautionary tales left me craving a politic that could lead to a
kinder world. But if you’re lonely for speed junkies, scat freaks, cybersensualists,
punk-rock shoplifters, gender benders, Tourette’s syndrome fetishists,
gloomophiles and glamazons, this is your book. $15.95, Alyson Publications.
And Watch Out For Tea’s forthcoming
illustrated novel, RENT GIRL, the tale of a young dyke’s adventures in and out
of the sex industry’s mix of “exciting outlaw occupation and traumatic
existential nightmare.” July, $24.95, Last Gasp.
Details on Michele Tea’s site.
Just as gritty as Pills..., but never
gratuitously so, DANGEROUS
FAMILIES: QUEER WRITINGS ON
SURVIVING, edited by Mattilda (a.k.a.
Matt Bernstein Sycamore), is another
mixed-gender collection. It also breaks all the rules about gender, sex, and
politics as the contributors shatter silences about the many kinds of abuse
families can inflict, but these writers know exactly where they’re coming from
and are on their way to something better. This collection follows in the
footsteps of The Courage to Heal and collects “the next generation’s” anger,
insight, and healing. $17.95,
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••••••••••••••••••
TAKE BACK YOUR LIFE
Kristie Helm’s DISH IT UP, BABY,
Firebrand II’s second offering, follows a plucky twenty-something
computer-savvy cubicle-girl forward out of an abusive marriage, backward
through her bad-teeth Kentucky childhood, and up, down, and sideways through
the adventure of finding out who she is now: a southerner or a southern-drawl
New Yorker? a lesbian (or does that just seem like a good idea?), a career
woman or a temp girl? But find her way, she does. It’s a good ride for the
reader and a solid second title from the newly reconstituted Firebrand.
Helms’s blog (web-log, aka, online
journal) won a 2001 Best Writing Award from Diaries.net. If Dish It Up is any
indication, blogging is great training for emerging novelists. But don’t worry
if you’re not a geek, no computers are required to enjoy this tale. Check out
the blog at http://www.DishItUpBaby.com.
or schedule an online “appearance” with Helms for your book group. $14.95,
Firebrand.
The title, by the way, is taken from
the advice a waitress gives our heroine on her first, overwhelmed evening in
NYC:
“When we finished eating, the waitress brought
the check over and sat down at the table. She told us that subways go 'uptown'
and 'downtown' and that there are detailed transit maps posted in every
station....She told me that her manager could help us find an apartment.... She
told me that
Caroline Kraus’ BORDERLINES, on the
other hand, isn’t a lesbian book at all, despite the odd bit of sexuality and
the deep passion and attraction between two women. It is, rather, a deeply
insightful memoir – albeit one that reads like a thriller – about a friendship
gone terribly wrong, what it took to break free of it, the delicate lines
between intimacy and identity, and the possibility of giving up one’s boundaries
and identity to maintain an illusion of love. Rich, complex, even wryly funny
at times. Tolerable only because we know that Kraus did find her center again,
in the end. A wise and rewarding tale. $23.95, Broadway/Random House.
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••••••••••••••••••
OF LIVES AND LITERATURE...
SONGS OF THE GORILLA NATION: MY
JOURNEY THROUGH AUTISM is a profound and insightful memoir about growing up
with undiagnosed autism (Asperger's Syndrome). Dawn Prince-Hughes writes of
unexpectedly finding, after a difficult period of drug abuse and homelessness,
an unexpected sense of community and harmony with a zoo-bound family of
silverback gorillas, and how she then applied the social skills she learned
from the gorillas to understanding and connecting with – human primates....
Less intentionally, perhaps, it’s also a memoir of being an out-lesbian in a
Montana high school just after Harvey Milk was shot, of a gay community that
made room for her, of striving toward understanding relationships and how (and
why) to have them, and of her relationship with her partner, Tara, and their
son. And it’s a profound meditation on the connections between humans and other
species and on cross-cultural and interspecies definitions of justice.
Unexpectedly I left the book with more sympathy toward men (at least of the
silverback variety) and wondering if undiagnosed and untreated autism is common
among control-oriented battering men.
Prince-Hughes, after a troubled
young adulthood, is an anthropologist specializing in primate behavior. In
Songs she offers a compelling and fascinating tale. $24, Harmony/Random House.
There are days when I enjoy Margaret
Atwood’s wry, sharp-minded, sharp-tongued nonfiction even more than her
fiction. If the arts (and
cynicisms) of the writing life are
your pleasures, and if you are charmed by sentences like “We do so wish to
believe in a logical universe” and eagerly anticipate the deconstructions that
follow, indulge yourself with NEGOTIATING WITH THE DEAD: A WRITER ON WRITING.
$14, Anchor/Random House.
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••••••••••••••••••
AND FOR A LITTLE GIRL-GETS-GIRL
AFFECTION...
BACK TO BASICS: A BUTCH-FEMME
ANTHOLOGY, the first offering in Bella’s new Bella After Dark (BAD) imprint,
offers good, one-handed reading for women who want something spicier than a
Naiad, but without the imposition of chains, pains, and humiliations and other
downers that are standard fare for trendier lesbian erotic collections. Look
for well-dressed roles, well-placed dildos, odd bits of analysis, and a little
light bondage and fist-fucking. Edited by Therese Szymanki and featuring work
by Karin Kallmaker, Lesléa Newman, Julia Watts, Joy Parks, Carole Rosenfled,
krysia lycette villón, and many others. $14.95, Bella/BAD.
Cynn Chadwick's GIRLS WITH HAMMERS,
the sequel to Cat Rising ($17.95, Alice Street Editions) is a great read
whether you’ve read the first book or not. It follows carpenter Lily Cameron’s
adventures through a difficult year: her best friend and fellow Girl With
Hammer has already left town, her girlfriend gets sick of her sulking and takes
a job in Europe just as her dad dies and leaves her in charge of the family
construction business.... It all means finding new ways to walk through a
challenging time – and learning to embrace unexpected alliances while keeping
her own integrity intact. $19.95 pb,
“Well constructed and reinforced.
This novel hits the nail on the head ” –Emöke B’Racz, Malaprops Bookstore.
GULF BREEZE, by Gerri Hill, and SURVIVAL
OF LOVE, by Frankie J.
Jones, are both
somebody-done-me-wrong-so-I’m-not-easy-to-get songs, but they also feature
issues-lite: In GULF BREEZE, wildlife biologist Carly Cambridge struggles to
instill just a wee bit of politics and consciousness into the heart of
brilliant and handsome nature photographer Pat Ryan. SURVIVAL OF LOVE takes on
long-term friendships between lesbians and straight women, cross-generational
relationships, and even more daringly, breast cancer in the midst of a
passionate new relationship.... Given the light-reading/romance context, I was
especially pleased to find the Mautner Project/National Lesbian Health
Organization page at the end of SURVIVAL OF LOVE, which features Alison
Bechdel’s breast exam drawings and a lesbian-safe place to go for more
information. What an excellent idea Web
sites routinely feature “author’s favorite links”
pages, and books should be able to
be “interactive” in the same way.
An “author’s favorite resources”
page could give readers whose interest has been piqued a place to begin.
Congratulations to Frankie Jones and to Bella for this innovation. Both books
are $12.95, Bella.
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••••••••••••••••••
SOCIAL SCIENCE
One of BTWOF’s favorite readers
highly recommends THE PECKING ORDER:
WHICH SIBLINGS SUCCEED AND WHY by
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••••••••••••••••••
POLITICS
I’m staring at three photos of
Condoleezza Rice that “graced” the front page of my local paper last week. In
all of them she looks so.... sincere, so wholesome, and so like someone you’d
want to trust, and whose friends you’d want to trust, too... At least now,
having read Laura Flander’s BUSHWOMEN: TALES OF A CYNICAL SPECIES, I know why I
feel so suckered by these images and how brilliantly the Bush administration
has used women to sugar-coat – and disguise – some of its most brutal policies
and anti-human actions. And I understand how the women of Bush’s inner circle
have been cast – via carefully crafted images – as moderate, malleable,
maverick, irrelevant or benign while the reality of their records remains
unscrutinized by a media that can’t get past its own
golly-gee-it’s-a-woman-isn’t-that-just-so-very-fascinating
pseudo-journalism to examine their
records and actually report on what these women are doing.But Flanders pulls
the wool away to reveal how Karen Hughes was used to defeat Ann Richards and
how pulled-themselves-up-by-their-bootstraps stereotypes have been utilized to
disguise Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and Rice’s familial and political power,
while entertaining us with tales of how Karen Hughes got her first job thanks
to NOW and the lesbian subplots in Lynne Cheney’s 1981 novel, Sisters.
Women can – and often do – decide
elections these days. And BUSHWOMEN will go a long way toward clarifying the
issues for all of us who have felt the least bit suckered by the right’s
brilliant use of “female friendly” (think “friendly fire”) rhetoric to cover
its actions. Buy it now, before the elections. And give a copy to all of your sympathetic
but confused relatives, friends, and coworkers. $22, Verso.
“Excellent, making this book
required reading for those of us too young to remember a time before the ‘New
Right.’” –Bust
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••••••••••••••••••
MORE ON MARRIAGE
Nolo Press has just released the
12th edition of its excellent, readable, and very useful LEGAL GUIDE FOR
LESBIAN AND GAY COUPLES.
This edition covers new
domestic-partner laws in
(See the last issue for other recent
books on gay marriage.)
EQUALITY PRACTICES: CIVIL UNIONS AND
THE FUTURE OF GAY RIGHTS by William Eskridge.
Eskridge argues that lesbians and gays should
support compromises like
CIVIL UNIONS: OPENING HEARTS AND
MINDS, Linda Hollingdale.
Forty-seven black & white
photographs and accompanying essays document the legislative struggle for the
right to gay/lesbian marriage that resulted in
ON SAME-SEX MARRIAGE, CIVIL UNIONS,
AND THE RULE OF LAW:
CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION AT THE
CROSSROADS, Mark Strasser.
The United States Constitution has
already been interpreted to provide a variety of family-related protections
which, if applied consistently, also protect same-sex couples and their
children.
Strasser explains that only by
radically reformulating and severely undermining existing protections can
courts and commentators justify the claim that the Federal Constitution does
not offer a wealth of family protections, including the right to marry a
same-sex partner.
$44.95, Praeger. 2002.
LEGAL RECOGNITION OF SAME-SEX
PARTNERSHIPS: A STUDY OF NATIONAL, EUROPEAN AND INTERNATIONAL LAW, edited by
Robert Wintemute and Mads Andenas.
An international team of scholars examines
both theoretical issues and the wide variety of legal developments in the
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•••
WHAT THEY'RE READING
AT WILD IRIS
Each issue BTWOF asks the staff at a
different women's bookstore what they're reading and what they're loving. This
issue we asked Dottie Faibisy and Mindy Cardozo at Wild Iris Books what women
are reading in
* Books with lesbian content.
HIGH COUNTRY, Nevada Barr’s
bestselling new Anna Pigeon mystery, is set in the
Cynn Chadwick’s Cat Rising was a
very popular item at Wild Iris Books, and the follow-up sequel, GIRLS WITH
HAMMERS, is another success. Lily Cameron and her all-female construction
company are a sexy and mysterious delight for our lesbian fiction fans. $19.95.
Allison Bechdel’s classic comic
strip serial, Dykes to Watch Out For, is, of course, a hilarious and
politically savvy consideration of independent bookstore drama, current events,
and lesbian romance, child-rearing, and community. The 10th book in the series,
DYKES AND SUNDRY OTHER CARBON-BASED LIFE-FORMS TO WATCH OUT FOR, is a
delightful return to form. $13.95. Alyson Publications.*
WAR TALK, Arundhati Roy’s third book
of nonfiction essays is a timely and scathing look at contemporary global
politics. In War Talk,
WRAPPED IN RAINBOWS by Valerie Boyd
is being called the “definitive”
new biography of Zora Neale Hurston.
Hurston, a favorite author of the professors and students who order their
textbooks through Wild Iris Books, is much-loved by many Floridians for her
creative storytelling and locally inspired narratives. Wrapped in Rainbows is
the first new Hurston biography in more than 25 years, and we can hardly keep
it on the shelf $16.00. Scribner.
Michelle Tea’s newest book is a
collection of poetry bearing the same title as one of the included poems, THE
BEAUTIFUL ($13.95. Manic D.
Press). As the title suggests, Tea
offers a consideration of the country she’s spent years hitchhiking and poetry
slamming her way across and back. Tea, a prolific Boston-born
THE RISE OF THE CREATIVE CLASS by
Richard Florida. This is the current “in book” in
#2 spot in
THE TROUBLE WITH ISLAM: A MUSLIM’S
CALL FOR REFORM IN HER FAITH, by Canadian lesbian Irshad Manji, takes a
humorous and insightful look at mainstream Islam. An important book for any
reader because, as Manji warns: “If more of us don’t speak out against the
imperialists within Islam, these guys will walk away with the show.” $22.95.
St.
Martin’s Press.*
WOMEN WHO EAT: A NEW GENERATION ON
THE GLORY OF FOOD, features popular feminists such as Ayun Halliday and
Michelle Tea challenging both the idea that women are more concerned with
dieting than with savoring a good meal, and that feminists can’t be bothered
with cooking This book is part of the
Live Girls series from Seal Press, which also includes such Wild Iris favorites
as Inga Muscio’s Cunt and Ariel Gore’s Atlas of the Human Heart. $15.95. Seal
Press.*
We can’t keep Ellen Degeneres’ new
memoir, THE FUNNY THING IS . . ., on the shelf. With her trademark wit and
comfortable prose, Ellen gives us the ultimate guide to her everyday battle
with greatness.
$23.00. Simon & Schuster.*
Many thanks to Dotty and Mindy and
to all the women at Wild Iris for their help and for all the work they do to
support our community. You can find Wild Iris at
Phone: 352-375-7477 or email
wildIrisbk@aol.com --> mailto:wildIrisbk@aol.com
wildIrisbk@aol.com. There's a current list of women's bookstores at www.litwomen.org/WIP/stores.html
--> http://www.litwomen.org/WIP/stores.html.
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•••
THE CRIME SCENE
BY
Presented by the Mystery Writers of
America, the Edgar Awards, named after Edgar Allan Poe, are the premiere
American mystery awards, the Oscars of the genre. The 2003 nominations have
been announced, and a number of the nominees are of feminist and even lesbian
interest.
(For a complete list, go to http://www.mysterywriters.org -->
http://www.mysterywriters.org/.)
OUT by Natsuo Kirino, translated by
Stephen Snyder ($22.95, Kodansha
International) was nominated for
Best Mystery Novel of 2003. Billed as Thelma-and-Louise-meet-Dostoevsky, OUT is
a dark crime novel that focuses on four women factory workers in
Also nominated for Best Mystery
Novel was MAISIE DOBBS by Jacqueline Winspear ($24.00, Soho Press). The
eponymous heroine of MAISIE DOBBS is a former WWI nurse – now a private
investigator in 1920's
Her first case involves suspected
infidelity, but quickly leads to the fate of several wounded war veterans. A
long middle section tells Maisie's story from childhood, including how she met
her unusual mentor, Dr. Maurice Blanche. Maurice Blanche is less Sherlock
Holmes than William James, putting out an oddly New Age-ish mix of philosophy
and psychology: e.g., “Judicious use of the energy of touch can transform, as
the power of our aura soothes the place that is injured.” Nevertheless,
Maisie's story grew on me, and I found myself racing through the last third of
the book. Winspear deals thoughtfully with the clash between Maisie's education
and her working-class roots, as well as with the changes wrought by the war.
Although MAISIE DOBBS is a
satisfying “read,” I did find myself longing for the more artful style and
psychological complexity of other books I've read dealing with the traumatic
legacy of WWI – notably mysteries such as JUSTICE HALL by Laurie R. King
($6.99, Bantam), which really does feature Sherlock Holmes, and the fascinating
series by Charles Todd that began with A TEST OF WILLS ($6.99, Bantam). The
gold standard here is the literary trilogy by Pat Barker comprising
REGENERATION, THE EYE IN THE DOOR, and THE GHOST ROAD ($14.00 each, Plume),
winner of the Booker Prize.
Another 20th-century war dominates
hearts and minds in DEATH OF A NATIONALIST by Rebecca Pawel ($12.00, Soho
Press), nominated for Best First Mystery. In 1939
While searching for the killer of a
murdered comrade, he discovers a wounded Republican in hiding. In unraveling
the murder mystery, Tejada also must question his assumptions about who are his
friends and enemies, villains and heroes. Pawel recently published a sequel,
THE LAW OF RETURN ($24.00, Soho Press), in which Tejada travels to
Months ago our esteemed editor,
Carol Seajay, picked SOUTHLAND by Nina Revoyr ($15.95, Akashic Books), a
wonderfully atmospheric lesbian novel about a Japanese American law student, as
Find of the Issue for the very first BTWOF. The Edgar Committee has also
nominated SOUTHLAND for Best Original Paperback Mystery – yet another reason to
put this one on your must-read list.
Also nominated for Best Original
Paperback, FIND ME AGAIN by Sylvia Maultash Warsh (Dundurn Group – no longer
available; check used book stores or your library) looks like it would be worth
tracking down.
Second in a series featuring
For the record, one of my favorite
women writers, S.J. Rozan, won the Edgar Award for Best Mystery Novel last year
for WINTER AND NIGHT ($6.99,
The series began with CHINA TRADE
($6.50, St. Martin's Press), which focused on
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•••
NOW IN PAPER
And with a shiny new, much more
science-fictionish cover: SOLITAIRE by Kelley Eskridge. About which BTWOF said,
“Excellent writing, a profoundly insightful and engrossing story, and a complex
exploration of passion and commitment.” If you read any science fiction at all
(or even if you don’t), make a beeline for this book $13.95, Eos/HarperCollins.
LEAVING MOTHER LAKE, by Yang Erche
Namu and Christine Mathieu, “fascinating portraits of a girl growing up amidst
huge cultural changes and of the ‘Country of Daughters’ – the still-functioning
matrilineal society high in the
The telling is as wonderful as the
history.” $14.95, Little Brown
CRAWFISH DREAMS, Nancy Rawles’
sequel to Love Like Gumbo, features lesbian activist Grace’s mother, Camille,
(got that?), Camille’s attempts to reconcile her children’s errant (to her
eyes) choices with her own priorities, and a few mad schemes designed as much
to pull the kids back in as to generate retirement income. A great adventure
set on the Creole edge of
NOTHING THAT MEETS THE EYE: THE
UNCOLLECTED STORIES OF PATRICIA HIGHSMITH, $15.95, Norton.
Click to here to read BTWOF’s
original reviews of these books.
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BOOKS TO WATCH OUT FOR
Alice Walker’s new novel, NOW IS THE TIME TO
OPEN YOUR HEART.
$24.95, Random House.
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AWARDS
THE AMELIA BLOOMERS
If you buy books for young readers,
check out the 2004 Ameila Bloomer List. All the books on the list celebrate
girls and women as a vibrant force in the world, the power of choice in the
lives of girls and women, and/or girls and women who stand up for themselves
and others. The Bloomer list covers picture books through high school reading
and is sponsored by the Feminist Task Force of the Social Responsibilities
Round Table of the American Library Association.
What a great resource
http://www.libr.org/FTF/bloomer.html
ALICE B READERS
The 2003-2004 Alice B Readers’ Appreciation
Medal went to Peggy Herring, Karin Kallmaker, and Radcliffe. The awards include
a $500 honorarium, the Reader’s Appreciation Medal, and a silver lapel pin.
The Alice B Awards are given to
authors of lesbian fiction who have produced a body of well-written,
inspirational, and entertaining fiction. The award comes from a group of
lesbians in
NEBULAS
Nalo Hopkinson’s SALT ROADS, featured in our
last issue, was nominated for a Nebula, as was DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY by Lois
McMaster Bujold, THE MOUNT by Carol Emshwiller, LIGHT MUSIC, by Kathleen Ann
Goonan, and THE SPEED OF DARK by Elizabeth Moon. Novellas on the Nebula
shortlist include Eleanor Arnason’s “Potter of Bones” and Kage Baker’s “Empress
of Mars.”
You can read excerpts from the
nominated novels and novellas, as well as nominated short stories by Eleanor
Arnason, Carol Emshwiller, Karen Joy Fowler, and Molly Gloss by following the
links from http://sfwa.org/awards/2004/nebfinal2003.html
PUBLISHING TRIANGLE AWARDS FINALISTS
THE FERRO-GRUMLEY AWARD FOR FICTION:
WOMEN Alison Bechdel, Dykes and Sundry
Other Carbon-Based Life-Forms to Watch Out For (Alyson) Rebecca Brown, The End of Youth (City Lights) Nina Revoyr, Southland (Akashic)
THE FERRO-GRUMLEY AWARDS FOR
FICTION: MEN Christopher Bram, Lives of
the Circus Animals (William Morrow)
Trebor Healey, Through It Came Bright Colors (Harrington Park) John Rowell, The Music of Your Life (Simon
& Schuster)
THE JUDY GRAHN AWARD FOR LESBIAN
NONFICTION Casey Charles, The Sharon
Kowalski Case: Lesbian and Gay Rights on Trial (University Press of
THE RANDY SHILTS AWARD FOR GAY
NONFICTION Augusten Burroughs, Dry (
THE AUDRE LORDE AWARD FOR LESBIAN
POETRY Daphne Gottlieb, Final Girl (Soft
Skull Press) Marilyn Hacker,
Desesperanto (W.W. Norton) Minnie Bruce
Pratt, The Dirt She Ate (
Press)
THE PUBLISHING TRIANGLE AWARD FOR
GAY MALE POETRY Patrick Donnelly, The
Charge (Ausable Press) Peter Pereira,
Saying the World (Copper Canyon Press) Brian
Teare, The Room Where I Was Born (University of Wisconsin
Press)
LAMMY UPDATE:
The Lambda Literary Foundation has removed The
Man Who Would Be Queen from the nominations from the Transgender/GenderQueer
category after the judges for that category concluded that the book was not an
appropriate nomination for the category. Click for details
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ABOUT BTWOF
Books to Watch Out For publishes
monthly e-letters celebrating books on various topics. Each issue includes new
book announcements, brief reviews, commentary, news and, yes, good book gossip.
THE LESBIAN EDITION
covers both lesbian books and the
whole range of books lesbians like to read. It covers news of both the women in
print movement and mainstream publishing. Written and compiled by Carol Seajay.
- Click here --> http://www.btwof.com/subscribe to
subscribe.
- Click here --> http://www.btwof.com/enewsletters.php
for more info.
- Click here -->
to tell a friend about the Lesbian
edition.
THE GAY MEN'S EDITION
announces and reviews new books by
and about gay men as well as other books of interest and gay publishing news.
Written and compiled by Richard Labonte.
- Click here --> http://www.btwof.com/subscribe to
subscribe.
- Click here --> http://www.btwof.com/enewsletters.php
for more info.
- Click here -->
to tell a friend about the Gay Men's
edition.
MORE BOOKS FOR WOMEN
will launch in 2004.
- Click here --> http://www.btwof.com/enewsletters.php#notify
to be notified when it launches.
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Q. How does BTWOF define "a
lesbian book?"
A. We think that any book that
belongs to a lesbian is a lesbian book, just as any bike that belongs to a girl
is "a girl's bike."
BTWOF: THE LESBIAN EDITION covers a
wide range of books likely to be of interest to our readers as well as books
with lesbian content and books by lesbian writers.
ADVERTISING & SPONSORSHIPS
BTWOF is financed by subscriptions,
rather than advertising or book sales. Publishers and individuals who wish to
help launch BTWOF are invited to sponsor any of the first 12 issues. Write to
Mozelle Mathews --> mailto:Mozelle@BTWOF.com
for sponsorship information.
HOUSEKEEPING
If you want to change your BTWOF
email address or other contact information, click here --> http://www.btwof.com/subscribe/services/
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•••
(c) 2004 Books to Watch Out For
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