Reading Rambo

HAPPY ST PATRICK'S DAY! What better way to celebrate than quickly running through an Irish lesbian author's work with little tidbits about each book.


These aren't all of Emma Donoghue's books, but it's a LOT of them, because when there is an out lesbian author who is even halfway good, you read her shit. And Emma Donoghue is more than halfway good, so there y'go.

Slammerkin
Slammerkin is INTERESTING because it's about this girl in the 18th century who wants more out of life and basically gets thrown around London until she winds up working for a lady and there is a SURPRISE ENDING. It makes you feel like you know what it was like to live in the 18th century, which is awesome, and it's based on a newspaper article Emma Donoghue found while just casually perusing an 18th century newspaper, because Emma Donoghue is a giant nerd.

Landing
Landing is basically a romcom novel about a Canadian girl falling in love with an Irish flight attendant lady and I WOULD LIKE…

 "It's people that matter, Mar, not sexes or ages...The monsters are those who go rutting around like monkeys, not those who choose to be human whatever it costs."
Certain brave humans have fought over the centuries to make those around them realize that love between people is love between people, and it exists in many forms. This idea has been viciously denounced, smeared, lambasted, and beaten into silence. But someone new has always appeared to carry the torch and continue the fight.

Jane Rule, for those not living deep in the forest of Lesbian Literature, is the author of the rather famous lesbian novel Desert of the Heart. She wrote a book in 1975 called Lesbian Images, which while being a title you'd rather hide while reading on the train, is in fact very worth reading.

Lesbian Images starts with a chapter on 'Myth and Morality,' which is where 1975 Jane Rule has to talk out why we believe what we believe, and make us think about whether what we believe …

We don't talk about lesbian literature enough. Because in the grand scheme of things, there isn't a lot of it. But Curious Wine, originally published in 1983 by Naiad Press, was one of the bigger 1980s lesbian novels.



Katherine V. Forrest is mainly known for her lesbian detective series, starring policewoman Kate Delafield, but Curious Wine and An Emergence of Green are her big standalone novels.

This book is the gayest. A bunch of ladies sitting around a cabin, talking about Emily Dickinson. Then two of them lez out. Theeee end.



But for reals though, Forrest's books are very much of their time, and you've gotta take this book for what it is if you're going to enjoy it. If you read it in 2015, it comes off extremely dated and very reactionary to the culture of the time. Suffice it to say, in both of Forrest's standalone novels, there's an evil male and a rape scene that reaffirms one of the women's decision to be with another woman.


Reading LGBT books from …

All right. Gonna sit down and talk about The Price of Salt, also known as Carol,by Patricia Highsmith.




Why is this book relevant to you AT ALL? Well, the movie version's about to be released, starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, so if you like those ladies, you might want to read this beforehand.

SO. Book. What are you.

There is a girl. Named Therese. The year is 1953 (or thereabouts), and she starts out the book working in the doll section of a department store. She's 21, trying to get work as a set designer in the theatre, and is thoroughly depressed by her job. Mainly because she sees herself being ruled by The Man and his Corporation. It doesn't help that her co-workers have been there for years and seem ideal candidates for a Karl Marx diatribe on capitalism quashing the Human Spirit. 

So you know something's going to change for her, because 1) This is a pretty famous lesbian novel, and none of her co-workers seem like good pair-ups for her, and 2) She really does…

In 1892 in Memphis, Tennessee, 19-year-old Alice Mitchell slashed the throat of her ex-fiancée, Freda Ward. The subsequent trial focused not so much on the horror of what she had done, but on the defense's argument that her engagement to a woman meant she was clearly insane.

Alexis Coe's book Alice + Freda Forever is short and has a bangin' cover.

She's clearly done a lot of research, and lays out the story clearly and chronologically while not getting mired in the historian's pitfall of injecting too much detail. She goes from the murder to the trial to the questioned fate of Alice Mitchell (spoilers: she died in an insane asylum, but whether it was of natural causes or suicide is unknown). I like true crime and I like lesbians and I like the 19th century, so this seemed immensely far up my particular alley.



There is some frustration, as Alice Mitchell's feelings are never really known. She kept no surviving journal from her months in jail, so the only things we …

Sarah Waters is The Lesbian Author to Read. Other than Michelle Tea. And maybe Alice Walker. When you consider the number of people in this world and then the number of authors and then the number of GOOD authors, think how much smaller that last number is going to be for particular subgroups. Sarah Waters gets extra points because she usually sets her novels in the 19th century and also wrote an entire book about different types of lesbian relationships in Victorian England (see: Tipping the Velvet, which you should read yesterday).


Her newest book, The Paying Guests -- which I stalked my way into getting at Book Expo America -- is set in London in the 1920s. An upper middle class woman and her mother have to take in lodgers to get out of debt, and when a married couple moves in, romantic shenanigans ensue. AS WELL THEY SHOULD. Then a crisis of course arises (someone gets straight-up murdered sort of) and the rest of the book concerns said crisis.

I was SO INTO THIS at its beginning,…

Four hours of The L Word last night, mostly involving me wrapped in a blanket weeping on my couch.


Bette? Half of the couple I love with an all-consuming-since-Sunday devotion? Yeah, so there's a character named Alice on the show, and half of the couple I love and who made me cry like four times last night ACTUALLY SAID: "Fuck you, Alice."

THANKS SHOW.


What are some hilarious books, guys? Because I'm currently reading The Book Thief and Cloud Atlas, and neither is imbuing me with merriment. And I will need this, because I'm only on season two out of six of this demonspawn show, and determined to finish before I go to New York in early December (Alley, you better not back out on me for lunch/dinner/coffeetimes when I visit).

I can handle only so much sadness at one time. Mostly because I'm the most impressionable ever, so if I'm surrounded by sadness, I get totally pulled down into it. This is also a problem when I hear debates, because each side goes and I ke…

I NEVER get to write blog posts at home, as home is where I practice piano and singing and watch South Park and eat hummus. Work is where I wait for the phone to ring and stuff envelopes (I AM THE BACKBONE OF MY COMPANY). But here I have access to a whole other array of gifs. SO EXCITING. So although this shall be published while I am at work, it is written in the midst of a thunderstorm, as I wear an oversized t-shirt with multiple superheroes on it and pirate boxer shorts, both of which I fear would be deemed unsuitable work attire (a tragic loss for the company).
This week I am basically only super-focusing on Telegraph Avenue and Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich (summary thus far: Native Americans are people too), so I have little to say on the subject of books, BUT I just watched the film Desert Hearts (based on Desert of the Heart by Jane Rule), which I, for about a year, mistakenly assumed was about a transvestite man getting stuck in the desert. I'm sorry, but from far away,…

All right. Gonna sit down and talk about The Price of Salt, which is an important enough book to get its own post (even though I was up stupid-late last night being excited about things, so I am going to do things like write "up-stupid late").

Why is this book relevant to you AT ALL? Well, they're going to start filming a movie version of it with Cate Blanchett and Mia Wasikowska (it's going to be called Carol, apparently, which is an alternate title of the book anyway). So if you like those ladies, you might want to read this beforehand.

SO. Book. What are you.

From the cover we can tell that, oh, this appears to be a book about a young woman, perhaps set in the past, and she seems ANXIOUS about something. Oh my, I wonder what.

The girl is Therese, the year is 1953 (or thereabouts), and she starts out the book working in a department store, like you see in the movie Elf. Only she works in the doll department and doesn't believe in Santa as far as I know. She's 2…