Alice Munroe's The Progress of Love
Reviewed by Lee Lawton
Reviewed by Lee Lawton
Reviewed by Lee Anne Phillips
Reviewed by Lee Lawton
Reviewed by Lee Anne Phillips
Reviewed by Lee Lawton
Reviewed by Karen Sloan
Reviewed by Lee Anne Phillips
Reviewed by Lee Lawton
Reviewed by Lee Lawton
Reviewed by Lee Anne Phillips
Reviewed by Lee Lawton
Reviewed by Lee Lawton
Reviewed by Lee Anne Phillips
Reviewed by Lee Anne Phillips
Reviewed by Terre Poppe
Reviewed by Lee Lawton
Reviewed by Lee Lawton
Reviewed by Lee Lawton
Reviewed by Lee Anne Phillips
Reviewed by Lee Lawton
Reviewed by Lee Lawton
Reviewed by Lee Lawton
Five Short Reviews by Lee Anne Phillips
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You can find the books reviewed here at one of the many women's bookstores listed in the Feminist Bookstore Index. The links indicated here point to text-only versions of the index for the convenience of women with slow modem connections but a prettier Netscape-enhanced version is just a hotlink away.
Feminist Bookstores in Canada and the USA:
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Here's my list of recommended romances for lesbians, barely in time for Valentine's Day, some brand new, some you may have missed, in no particular order and catering to nearly every taste:
P.S. Don't miss the romances on my holiday list,
over in the 1995 archive.
Passions Between Women: British Lesbian Culture 1668-1801
by Emma Donoghue
Scarlet Press, London, 1993
OK, so this isn't exactly a romance: it is a very valuable look at love between women going back a little further into the past than some recent over-hasty scholarship has accounted for. If you've felt a little cheated because of the scarcity of real historical references, then Emma Donoghue's fascinating look at the English lesbian experience is a goldmine. Here you'll find the bawdy and titillating Former Aide to DeLay Pleads Guilty in Conspiracy Case"breeches parts,Former Aide to DeLay Pleads Guilty in Conspiracy Case" the female Former Aide to DeLay Pleads Guilty in Conspiracy Case"husbands,Former Aide to DeLay Pleads Guilty in Conspiracy Case" the Former Aide to DeLay Pleads Guilty in Conspiracy Case"hermaphrodites,Former Aide to DeLay Pleads Guilty in Conspiracy Case" the Former Aide to DeLay Pleads Guilty in Conspiracy Case"secretFormer Aide to DeLay Pleads Guilty in Conspiracy Case" life of the convent, and the Amazonian speculations of women desiring a space apart from men in a work of impeccable scholarship and rich detail.
We are not the first generation to think these thoughts, live this life, or even the second or third; far from being inconceivable, as some would have us believe, men were snickering about Former Aide to DeLay Pleads Guilty in Conspiracy Case"tribadesFormer Aide to DeLay Pleads Guilty in Conspiracy Case" before the American Revolution, women were loving each other, and there was at least one Loge des Lesbos (Lesbian Lodge) in France. British lesbians traced their spiritual ancestry back to Sappho of Lesbos (Surprise, surprise!) just as lesbians often do today. What? You mean we didn't just make this up?
This book is a breath of fresh air in a very stuffy room. In contrast to the strained drawing room Former Aide to DeLay Pleads Guilty in Conspiracy Case"respectabilityFormer Aide to DeLay Pleads Guilty in Conspiracy Case" of romantic friendship awkwardly maintained by a few recent writers, Donoghue takes us right into the boudoir and shows us what was really going on behind closed doors. While it's true that there were much stronger pressures for women to marry men in those days, it's equally true that many women (and men) viewed these unions primarily as social obligations, marriages, in fact, of convenience, and took their real pleasures where they felt desire, rather than in the prescribed marital bed, and found love where they might.
Greener Than Grass
by Jennifer Fulton
Naiad Press, Tallahassee, 1995
What can I say? It's a Naiad. It's Jennifer Fulton (AKA Rose Beecham). It starts out in darkness, Blair has just been dumped by her twenty-year lover, and ends in a flash of lightning as she tells Cassie, the predestined central figure in her new life, that she loves her. This announcement is met with general approval, big smiles all around. Allriiight! You go, grrrl!
I hope I haven't given too much away for you but, really, you can tell that inexorable fate has brought them together from the first scene. That doesn't spoil the pleasure we feel in discovering Blair's recovering ability to commit herself, or in seeing the much younger Cassie take her first steps into womanhood and true love.
Jennifer Fulton is a reliable and talented writer and her trademark "plugs" for her alter ego, Rose Beecham, are as funny and off the cuff as usual. How could you possibly go wrong?
The Love Songs of Phoenix Bay
by Nisa Donnelly
St. Martin's Press, New York, 1994
We follow the adventures of Phoenix Bay, angst-ridden, tattooed woman of the 90's, more or less as she relates them to her psychiatrist. Phoenix has seen a lot of life on her journey, including a few failed attempts to end it which is more or less consistent with the major theme which runs through this novel like a trickle of blood, running away. The amazing thing is that she winds up with a destination after all instead of falling as a casualty by the side of the road but then the young are notoriously resilient. Along the way, she talks about the end of the century, about the things that concern women, especially young women, today, and about coming to terms with life, with death, and everything in between. Along the way we are introduced to Jinx, her tattoo artist ex-lover, and a whole cast of other characters, funny and sad, as Phoenix picks her way through dangerous territory to find a sort of mission in life, and a destination, a kind of love, leaving her psychiatrist behind.
This is one good book. Read it.
Annie On My Mind
by Nancy Garden
Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1982, New York.
I wish this book had been written twenty years before its actual publication date. No, I wish it had been written fifty years ago or more. It would have saved me a lot of time and anguish but other women have needed it before me. It should be a staple item in every bookstore in the country but, unfortunately, is getting rather hard to find. I'm seeing the hardcover edition remaindered at women's bookstores lately so, quick like a bunny, run down and buy a copy right this minute, before they go out of print or something equally dreadful. Buy several copies, you'll need them. Save them to give to your daughters and nieces, your granddaughters and great-nieces, or any of your young friends.
This book should be in the hands of every adolescent girl today, not tomorrow, so that the budding lesbians among them can see that love can be incredibly sweet and that problems can be overcome, even big problems, and so that the other girls can see that young lesbian girls have the same hearts that break, are broken daily, by the difficulties involved in adolescent love affairs between girls.
This is a realistic novel of two young girls, just entering womanhood, who meet, who love each other, in spite of persecution and intolerance, and manage despite setbacks to make a life which just might include each other even though their parents are hostile and disappointed, the neighbors are antagonistic and disgusted, and they feel exactly as alone and frightened as two young girls possibly can. These girls are not perfect; they make mistakes, they falter, but through it all you get the feeling that somehow, things are going to be all right with them - and of course they are.
Playing For Keeps
by Stevie Rios
Rising Tide Press, Huntington Station, New York, 1995
This is one of those looking for our history and finding love along the way stories, and very well done. Becca (our hera) misses the boat, literally (and quite unlike her) but uses the serendipitous opportunity to escape an unwanted Olivia Cruise and a particularly persistent admirer to find a notebook which has been lying in a used book store for twenty-five years waiting for her. The notebook, of course, leads her into another voyage, a voyage of discovery, riding along on another woman's voyage of 25 years before.
The stories interweave as Becca gets caught up in the life of this woman, Lindsay West, who first discovers friendship in a foreign land among a small circle of gay and lesbian “society” (while Becca is holed up in a hotel) and then (of course) falls deeply in love with a woman she had thought unattainable. She is led into an adventure almost impossible to imagine and through it experiences a connection to the natural world so intense that she has to follow where it leads, no matter what. Her kinesthetic and mystical experience of love which includes all the natural world, the animals as well as the trees and rocks, is at the heart of the book and calls us all to follow, just as it does to Becca. Give this book a try, you'll like it. In the meantime, where's my passport? I'm headed for the Amazon. See you there.
I would have liked to give each of these books a more lengthy and loving review but limited space doesn't permit me that luxury. If any of them seem to be as well worth reading as they really are, in spite of my too-terse descriptions, and you want to read it, please make your purchase from a women's bookstore. If you don't know of a local store, visit my web site, The Feminist Bookstore Index, at these URLs:
Feminist Bookstores in Canada and the USA:
Feminist Bookstores in Europe, Asia, South America, Australia & New Zealand:
On these fully indexed pages you will probably find one or
more women's bookstores convenient to you, including
many with presences on the world-wide web, wherever you are
in the world. Please purchase from a women's store if
you can. Women's words are precious but often
fragile, as countless examples show us. Entire generations of
women's experience and wisdom have been lost (or
almost lost) because of “traditional” indifference
or even hostility to women's lives. Women's
bookstores are the treasuries dedicated to keeping our
stories circulating but they need your help in keeping our
common language alive for ourselves, our daughters, ...and
our sons.
Thank you so very much for your support,
Lee Anne Phillips
E-mail: leeanne@leeanne.com
Copyright © 1995, 1996 Lee Anne Phillips
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
This is a book I come back to again and again. This is also my very favorite book of poetry in the world, so far. These poems are indescribably GREAT, in my opinion. I say "Wow" after almost every one, and that just doesn't happen. One warning, however: this is heavy stuff; the subject matter, not the writing. The writing is accessible and clear, but be careful those of you who have tripped over Big Bad Issues in your lives: these poems can hurt.
Copyright © 1996 Lee Lawton
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
The Hangdog Hustle is Elizabeth Pincus' third mystery novel featuring San Francisco-based detective Nell Fury. The book follows Fury as she tries to find out who killed young gay man Kent Kishida, and why.
Is it a friend or a lover? Is it a case of gay-bashing? Does it have anything to do with an environmental activist group Kishida became involved with shortly before his death? What does his mother know? And what role, if any, does the U.S. Army play?
Fury gradually comes up with the answers to these questions, receiving what seems to have become obligatory physical punishment in the process. Do authors have their dyke detectives get beaten up to show how butch and tough they are?
Pincus writes spare prose well suited to a detective story. And she has an excellent eye for detail -- we get strong descriptions of the Presidio and Alcatraz, for example. But sometimes she seems to take things too far. We're told about every single muffin, burger and cup of coffee Fury consumes. This technique can work -- Joseph Hansen uses it effectively in his novels. But in The Hangdog Hustle it becomes tedious, somehow.
Is this supposed to be gritty realism? Is Pincus trying to be a camera, telling us about absolutely everything that happens to her heroine over the course of the book? Is this strictly necessary, or could we get an edited view of events and still get a good picture of Fury and her quest?
Viewing Fury's everyday life through a microscope also tends to warp the progress of the plot. The beginning takes so long to establish that the climax comes in a big rush at the end. We know a lot about Fury's personal routine, much less about her personal feelings, and very little indeed about the villain(s), what they're really like and why they did what they did.
Pincus is a careful enough writer that the plot makes sense logically. But does it emotionally? I found myself at the end of the book without any real feeling about how I got there. Maybe this detachment is what Pincus thinks is necessary in a private eye...
The side cast of characters is mildly amusing, but only Nell Fury is allowed to take center stage. I miss the lively presence her daughter Pinky brought to Pincus' earlier books. In Hangdog Hustle, she's only represented in letters and phone calls.
And I want to know more about Fury's mysterious new office neighbor. But maybe that information is being saved for the next book in the series...
Copyright © 1995 Karen Sloan
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
The chapters cover twelve week's creative work,
with chapter titles such as "Recovering a Sense of
Safety", "Recovering a Sense of Power", etc..
All of the chapters begin with the word,
"recovering", so the assumption here is that we
have lost our sense of safety, identity, power, integrity,
possibility, abundance, connection, strength, compassion,
self-protection, autonomy and faith. If this describes you, I
recommend that you dash right out and buy this book. If you
feel that you have managed to retain a sense of a few of
these things, this book might not be quite as helpful.
The weekly exercises ask you to write in a journal every
day, have an artist's date with yourself once a week,
and do numerous other exercises, such as write about friends
living and dead, skip reading for a week, throw away old
clothing, saying affirmations, etc. There are enough
exercises to make you feel that you are working a program,
but the connection to creativity is a little nebulous IMO.
The book has a spiritual approach, and the author is very
Christian; and although she says that God is whatever
you'd like it/her/him to be, the flavor is still
quite Christian, which is hardly noticeable, if and only if
you are Christian.
I didn't find this book to be very helpful, even in the context of reading and working it with a study group. I felt that the author was a little preachy, which grates on me, but might work for others. I really like the title, though. And the book is full of great quotations by writer's and artists, so if you're looking for a signature file, this book can really help!
Copyright © 1996 Lee Lawton
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
When you think of the great American novel, you probably think of a big, thick book, maybe in several volumes, written by someone like John Jakes or James Michener. You probably wouldn't think of a slender, 113-page volume with prose as spare as poetry and just as descriptive. This little novel seems to have it all: coming of age, coming out, racial issues, incest, spousal abuse, lead paint, sex, love, Vietnam, masturbation, the generation gap, poverty, drugs, single motherhood, rock and roll, and the Brady Bunch. This is a short visit to a vivid world you won't soon forget.
Copyright © 1996 Lee Lawton
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
Last night I finished reading Blood Child and Other Stories, by Octavia Butler. These are all of Butler's short stories; she considers herself a novelist, not a short story writer. And I do love her novels. But these short stories are excellent. Butler has a way of looking at what seems to be our world, turning it slightly askew, and building on the "what if"s from there. Because she lives in the Los Angeles (Calif) area herself, most of her stories are set in and near there. The title story may be the farthest afield as it focuses on a world controlled by "aliens" (giant worms of some kind); it has a theme of male pregnancy. In her other stories Butler shows us our world, post epidemic or major war, filled with deformed people of all kinds; some of those who seem the most deformed are, in my opinion, the best in the lot. 'Speech Sounds' with its post virus world of people who have lost basic functions, but randomly -- some can still read but not talk, some can talk but not read or write, some have lost all these things, portrays a future we can't possibly want. And still, there is something there of hope in spite of the despair.
One of the things I like about this book is that Butler wrote "afterwords" for each story, sharing how the story grew to be and some of what she intended. Also, at the end are two essays she wrote and they are about her process of writing. I had the privilege of hearing/seeing her read from "Parable of the Sower" a couple of years ago. She just talked with the audience a lot too, about herself, about her writing, about just doing it if you want to write. I enjoyed her reading and her presence immensely. And I can highly recommend this collection of her shorter works of fiction.
Copyright © 1995, 1996 Terre Poppe
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
You won't find any feminist mythology or crone energy in this book. Dr. Furman (Ph.D.) writes about menopause from a medical perspective, and this is one of the best books about menopause I've read. She writes comprehensively and comprehensibly about menstruation and the cessation of menstruation. This fact-filled book explains why so many different phenomena can occur during menopause, since estrogen influences over 300 body functions, from learning to sexuality.
Numerous studies and recent research are cited to explain the most up-to-date theories about menopause and what to do with the symptoms which accompany it. Furman is unabashedly in favor of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), and she presents physiological facts and the results of research studies to support her opinion. She also explains how to read your laboratory results, how to talk with your physician, and what to expect from the entire process. The end of the book is devoted to general health topics of interest to middle age women, such as smoking and health, heart disease, nutrition and exercise.
I highly recommend this book to all women who are about to enter menopause, or who have already experienced the joys of hot flashes, irritability, or CRS (can't remember sh*t). This book will help you make informed decisions about HRT, and your general health.
Copyright © 1996 Lee Lawton
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
I read somewhere that if the world make any sense, it would be men that rode sidesaddle, not women. For many of the women whose lives are described in this book, sidesaddle was the only way society would let them ride, and dressed in long skirts was the only way society let them climb mountains. But these unstoppable women climbed mountains any way they could: dressed in ankle-length dresses, wearing boots meant for drawing rooms; and earning the reluctant respect of the men who thought mountain peaks were meant only for men to climb.
The first known mountain woman was Julia Archibald Holmes, an early feminist, who climbed Pikes Peak in 1858, and who scandalized the neighbors by wearing bloomers. Anna Dickinson dared to wear pants when she scaled Longs Peak in 1873. Nearly three dozen other woman are described, climbers from the late 1800s to the present. Here we have single women homesteaders, women skiers, skilled horsewomen, technical climbers, and even Doc Susie who tended patients for over fifty years, making house calls, road calls, train calls, corral calls and mountain calls wherever she was needed near Fraser, Colorado.
The sketches of these women vary in length from a little over a page to almost a chapter. Their lives and relationships are presented, insofar as they are known.
These women are our brave sisters; they won't be found in school history books; but they can serve as role models for us and for our daughters. Their spirits linger over those 14,000-foot Colorado peaks, reminding us that women are explorers and trailblazers, too.
Copyright © 1996 Lee Lawton
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
If the price of a book depended on the richness of the writing, and the complexity of the characters and plot, no library in the world would have been able to afford this book. I have also read The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx, which won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize. This book won the Pen/Faulkner Award. And no wonder. Both books are extraordinary, but I think I liked this one better.
Here Proulx introduces us to the Blood family, a group of people who are so oddly timeless that they could just as well have lived prehistorically as during the latter part of this century. Their lives are grueling, nearly devoid of love and affection, and they doggedly accept this fate as if nothing else existed in the world. They move through their worlds, leaving no mark, and yet there is a fascination with them, as if they were the movers and shakers of the country. This is entirely due to some of the best writing that has ever been committed to paper. What is even more extraordinary is that this is Proulx's first novel.
All I can say is, read this book--it'll knock your socks off.
Copyright © 1996 Lee Lawton
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
I hate to admit it, but this is the first Octavia Butler I've read. To get right to the heart of the matter, it won't be the last. Butler describes the U.S., California in particular, as it exists in 2025. It is just a little more than it is now. It is like looking at society in California through imperfect glass, and it is deeply frightening.
The country has run out of gas, literally. There are few vehicles on all those freeways. Almost everyone lives in gated communities, everyone who want to have a chance of staying alive, that it. Almost everyone carries a gun, even though it is still illegal. There are thousands of permanently homeless people who prey on passersby. There are more gangs and they are more violent. Food is hard to get, and very expensive. People grow as much as they can in their back yards, if they're lucky enough to still have a back yard. It hasn't rained in years. It is too dangerous for children to leave their enclaves to go to school, so neighborhoods teach children at home. Sound familiar?
Enter a young woman with a vision of the future. A teenaged woman with a grown-up soul. The book centers on her observations, and her creation of a new religion, a new way of living, that she begins to teach people as she encounters them on her odyssey away from Los Angeles toward a place of Eden, which might not even be on Planet Earth.
If you like futurist stories, you'll like this book. The world described her is saved from being a complete dystopia by the young woman and her dreams. Butler is now working on a sequel to Parable. I look forward to grabbing off the shelf as soon as it is printed.
Copyright © 1996 Lee Lawton
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
Octavia Butler might be one of a kind. She is a black woman writing science fiction. Are they any others? Not that I know of. Butler writes sci-fi about human relationships, human yearning, human problems and solutions, which just happen to be set in a future where the problems are at the same time old and new. Butler is deservedly the recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant. I hope that she keeps writing for a long time.
Dawn is the first book in a trilogy, which is followed by Adulthood Rites and Imago. In Dawn, Butler recounts the experiences of a young woman who awakens in a strange, nearly featureless room. She recalls having awakened there in the past, and not being able to escape, or to discover any information about it. This time, she finds out almost more than she can encompass, as she soon discovers that she is the captive of aliens with tentacles, and a rather distasteful appearance.
Now, this kind of story line is not at all uncommon in science fiction. And, there are some experiences that have been done before, by Heinlein, if I remember correctly. Grok? But, for the most part, this is an original treatment of the "captured by aliens to save humans from a devastated earth" theme. I look forward to reading the other two books in the trilogy.
Copyright © 1996 Lee Lawton
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
Barbara Walker is the author of The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, Women's Rituals: A Sourcebook, and several other nonfiction books about women's spirituality and the goddess. I pray that she returns soon to writing her informative nonfiction, and never again even thinks about writing another piece of fiction.
In this book, we have an Amazon warrior woman, who is somehow transported into the present day. She finds herself, naked, by the side of a highway. Now, here is an example of what exemplifies the difference between men and women. If you, as a woman, saw a naked person by the side of the road, would you immediately think, "lust"? But if a man saw a naked person (a woman), by the side of the road, would he immediately think, "pity"? Well, whatever your opinion of gender differences, this is the situation in which our Amazon finds herself. After successfully beating off the men, who wound her with a gun as she defends herself with the sword that accompanied her time travel, she is rescued by a local crone.
The book continues with Amazon's tribulations as she struggles to learn a culture which is very different than the one she is used to. If you think you'd be surprised to learn than you would much rather live in Iron Age Amazon society than our own, you should read Walker's book. Each page is filled with the advantages of Iron Age goddess-centered culture over our own. In fact, I would have to say that this theme is beaten into the ground, and if we don't get it in the first few pages, there is a constant, sharp elbow in our ribs to keep us on track. Or is it on tract? I believe that even if your spirituality is that of the goddess, that you will soon tire of this repetitious, heavy-handed theme, and will feel, as I did, like throwing the book across the room.
By the way, if you were able to finish this thing, could you let me know what happened to "Ann".
Copyright © 1996 Lee Lawton
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
Snow Job is a scary book. No, it's not a genre horror story, but a more-or-less true-to-life factual account of one woman's encounter with the justice system in this country. Her crime? Being married to a secret substance abuser. The punishment for this lapse from feminine perfection and omniscience is a messy divorce and the ensuing entanglement with the Probate Court consumes money like it was on fire and energy like being plunged into the Arctic Ocean.
This shocking immersion in cold reality is portrayed in a scathing indictment of greedy divorce lawyers, the incompetent family law justice system, and the civil legislatures which have, over the years, stripped "nurturers" (women, for the most part) of their legal protections from avaricious, abusive, or irresponsible "breadwinners" (guess who) with "no-fault" divorce laws which assume that no one is ever to blame (an outmoded concept, evidently) in a marital failure (heavens forfend!) and leaves the courts to divide the marital assets among the parties based on who can afford to pay the fanciest lawyers. Of course we can guess where that leaves women.
In real life, the world of commerce where men who run businesses can actually get hurt, we have breach of contract laws which establish blame and damages when one party breaches an obligation. In the fantasy world of marriage as envisioned by the predominately male legislatures of this country, if a man is a drunk or a junkie, his wife must either share the blame (the nagging bitch drove me to drink) or it never happened (the lying bitch never saw me drunk). If a physically abusive man runs out on his family so he can find "true love" in the bed of a woman 20 years younger than he, it's only natural and a woman really shouldn't expect any special treatment or sympathy (boys will be boys), and a man who systematically sets out to destroy his family, using the formidable arsenal of legal weapons available to people with money, is "only protecting his legal rights." Every day, women are sucked into a whirling battle with implacable lawyers who sit like trolls under the bridge, demanding payment before you can pass safely and representing their own interests first, best, and last.
This story is written by a survivor of that maelstrom. She is a meticulous journalist and kept a detailed log of her experience, detailed enough that she prints the text of the agreement one law firm made to forgo collection of her large outstanding bill if she would (please please) agree that the firm wouldn't be mentioned by name or identifiable in the final work. What's the matter, fellows? Was it embarrassing? It seems well researched and documented, even though it is a novel, and claims to be "nonfiction."
I have to say this and it's an observation I make with sadness: the work was badly marred for me by several derogatory homophobic references to "faggots" which shocked me. As a self-publisher, she could have used the good offices of an editor a little more sensitive to gratuitous and offensive slurs. If this is, in fact, her opinion and world-view, she needs to rethink her position. If it was merely unthinking parroting of another's bigotry, she needs to distance herself from it a little better than she does, as it passes without comment or special notice taken. The one potentially sympathetic gay couple who appear in the novel as "housemates" are, regrettably, not clearly identified as such; perhaps it was none of her business or perhaps they weren't, I don't know, but it seems that the only "faggoty" men are despicable and vile, an invidious stereotyping which wounds all gay and lesbian people.
The Snow Job of the title refers to the legal game as it's really played, a obscuring flurry of paper and words which disguise the real culpabilities of irresponsible "breadwinners" as well as moral and ethical bankruptcy of the whole legal system which serves as a "paid enabler" to allow substance abusers to continue to deny responsibility.
She has emerged from this a crusader for family law reform and better protections for women (oops, nurturers) and children. The recent news stories quoting O.J. Simpson, an admitted wife-batterer, as saying he never hit her, he was only trying to "protect" himself, are a particularly timely reminder that abuse is still going on, and that vicious, sometimes murderous men are still lying about it and getting away with it with the help of their paid enablers, the lawyers. If you are now, or may ever be involved in a divorce; if you know someone who might be, you need to read this book, in spite of it's flaws. It's emotional first aid and also gives you a few good ideas about how to fight back. Start with your representatives in your local state legislatures.
If you think (let's say you're a lesbian) that this could never happen to you, think again. The "tort reform" bills currently being pushed by business interests are essentially trying to model consumer law after the "no-fault" divorce laws. If you are injured by a company or its products, tough luck unless you can afford as many fancy lawyers as they can. It's time women took a good hard look at who really gets hurt by the justice system as a whole, and exactly who benefits. It ain't me, Babe. And it probably ain't you.
Copyright © 1996 Lee Anne Phillips
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
Alice Munro is known for her short stories, and the many awards she has won have been well-deserved. Her descriptions are quite marvelous, as you can tell by this: "Beryl scrubbed her face clean, and there was such a change that I almost expected to see makeup lying in strips in the washbowl, like the old wallpaper we had soaked and peeled." Ah, Tammy Fay! If you like short stories, you'll like Munro.
Copyright © 1996 Lee Lawton
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
The bad thing about reading mysteries is that, even when the book is horrible, you have to keep reading to find out "who done it". I'm not very good at figuring this out, so usually I have to read the entire, dreadful, thing before I get the answer. But in this mystery, I had it figured out way before the end, even as the author paraded out several more strawman suspects.
This book is the second of the China Bayles mysteries. Bayles is owner of a store which sells herbs and herb-related products. The first of this series was Thyme of Death. Get it? Huh, huh, huh? I'm quite interested in herbs, and much of what Albert said about them was accurate, but then there were those pesky little factual errors elsewhere which stand out like a pimple on the end of your nose. Stuff like this: "I'm right-brained, Ruby says, which in New Age terms means I'm too analytical." Or this: "But a lot of the fuel was absorbed by this porous caliche soil." If you know caliche, you know concrete. Maybe Scribner's fired all their editors. Or maybe they're just too right-brained to mess with the facts.
This is a C- mystery which gets a D from me for editorial laziness.
Copyright © 1996 Lee Lawton
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
Anne Perry lives in Scotland and is the author of a Victorian mystery series featuring Inspector Thomas Pitt and his wife Charlotte. This book is not part of that series, but it still takes place during the Victorian era. Even though I almost knew "who done it" in the first few pages, and despite the fact that I don't give a fig for the Victorian era, I liked this book.
William Monk, the main character, is a police inspector who wakes up from a accident-induced coma, to a bad case of amnesia. He is told that he is a police inspector, but he doesn't remember what kind of person he is. He soon finds out, however, and he is not very happy about it. He is given a case to solve which has lots of potential for wrecking the career which he apparently built out of overweening ambition, while making enemies right and left. This is not only a good mystery, but it is the story of a man who takes a hard look at himself and sees potential for change. The class separatism and elitism prevalent in Victorian times is nicely described, as is the gaslight and horse carriage-laden atmosphere.
Copyright © 1996 Lee Lawton
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These are the first three books in the Vorkosigan series, which continues with about nine more books about the Vorkosigan family. The family lives on an earth-like planet in the distant future, and space travel is common, as is distant travel through worm holes. You've probably figured out that this is sci-fi, right? And it's not bad sci-fi, either. There are strong female characters in these books. There are mean-spirited men, too, but that just adds to the reality of the story. There are wars, and futuristic technology, but the real story is about people, so this is not sci-fi for techno-dweebs. But if you like family stories with real people, which happen to be set in the future, I can recommend this series, so far.
Bujold has won just about every award there is for science fiction, including two Nebula awards and four Hugo Awards. She has been one of the biggest names in science fiction in the past few years. She writes short stories, and has also published a few other novels, but most of her writing so far has been this series.
These books were published by Baen Books, New York. Shards (1986), Barrayar (1991), and Warrior (1986). I read them in the order the events took place, not in the order in which they were published. For a chronology of Bujold's books, the awards she has received, and personal information, visit the Lois McMaster Bujold FAQ at:
Copyright © 1996 Lee Lawton
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Every book is written for an audience and this is no exception but it certainly has a more clearly delineated target than most. This is a frankly expository novel written for a particular audience of women, women touched by abuse in any of it's many forms, practically all of us. It explores the many ways in which abuse touches women's lives, sometimes vicariously, and the various strategies women use to cope with it through the device of a gathering of thirteen friends, all women, some rich, some poor, some abusers of substances, some abused by others, some in need of guidance, and some prepared to help, all to point out the way toward real change. The book is a fantasy, not in the situations, which are only too real, but in the longed-for solidarity of the women who don't turn away, even for an instant, when any of their sisters are in trouble. If only it were so.
One of the great tragedies of abuse is that so many women help to deny it or cover it up, where one sees a girlfriend or wife help create a false alibi for a rapist, where one sees a family close ranks in support of a molesting son or brother, where one sees a group of friends help hide the fact that a woman has a problem with drugs or alcohol. In this story, the women do it right. More than that, they are, collectively, fortuitously gifted with the temporal power that so many women lack, money and legal expertise among them, as well as all the needed skills to carry through any plan or enterprise.
Of course this is a metaphor. Collectively, women do have such powers. It is only here condensed that it seems less likely, a gift from the Goddess, as it were, that in this small group of women lies everything we need. They are all connected, all available to each other, and with the collective power they wield they begin to change the whole world and all its intricate mechanisms of power.
This is a work of passion and the passion shines through the sometimes awkward phrasing and episodic scenes. Coll Ela Goetz is a woman with a mission and that mission is no less than the revolutionary action of all women together in fighting oppression and abuse cooperatively. In her story, her women lead the way, seeking out first their sisters and then men of good will who desperately want the old, bad order to change, who want a free life for themselves and their children, free of fear, free of unjust discrimination, free of all the institutionalized systems of oppression and abuse that have kept a large portion of the world under the thumbs of the few in power.
Every day a new day comes, a new light always dawns, this is an eternal promise, that even as the old day slips away, there is rebirth in many forms, that change is integral to the world and that we can act to effectuate that change if only we will it so. This is the ultimate message of The Day Cinderella Died, that after the ball is over, after the stroke of midnight has passed, life goes on renewing itself and we have the choice before us: to sit by while others spin the web of our lives for us, or to seize the threads ourselves and make a new pattern, working together to make this portion of the great tapestry of life more beautiful and a more fulfilling place to live. As Coll Ela Goetz asks us at the end, "What about you...?" What are you doing to help? Everyone is free to participate in making the world change for the better, to give the very best they have to give. What about you?
Copyright © 1996 Lee Anne Phillips
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This is a lesbian western, with Carry Nation, a cow that produces lovely butter and flies on great wings, big sexy women, a possible baby dyke hired as a farm hand, magical transformations, ineffectual men, despair, greed, suspense, romance, sensuous foot bathing, Jesus, and a few other things that I'll let you find out for yourself.
This is without doubt the first time I have read of the story of Mary anointing Jesus' feet with oil that I perceived it as a sensuous foot massage. Everything about this book is sensuous. And if not sensuous, then just plain sexy. This is fat acceptance with all-capital letters, and a fun story it is!
If you are fat, if you are a lesbian, don't miss this book. If you are not fat nor a lesbian, read it and you'll wish you were!
Copyright © 1996 Lee Lawton
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
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