Review by Booklist Review
The 33 stories here, one in comics format and three previously unpublished, constitute an interesting foray into lesbian writing of the last 100 years. There is little to quarrel with about the selected authors, who include names new and old that can't be ignored when lesbian and writer are used in the same sentence--Stein, Hall, Woolf, Rule, and (Dorothy) Allison, for instance. Surefire commercial sellers such as Pat Califia, Anais Nin, and Jeannette (Sexing the Cherry) Winterson also appear. But one wonders about Margaret Atwood's "Cold-blooded"; editor Reynolds says it's about "politics and alienation," but there's little of the lesbian in its moth people from another planet. Such entries make the anthology seem hastily assembled. Some egregious interpretations and errors in Reynolds' introduction also disturb, and Reynolds' definition of lesbian writing as that which "exhibits, within the confines of the text itself, something which makes it distinctively about, or for, or out of lesbian experience" and her warning against assuming anyone "who writes on lesbian subjects must be herself a lesbian" seem to license the book's scattergun inclusiveness. Nevertheless, the volume belongs in most general collections. ~--Marie Kuda
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Showing the full range of fictional expression, this adventurous anthology opens with Sarah Orne Jewett's 1897 story, ``Martha's Lady,'' a delicate yet impassioned evocation of a furtive lesbian love and closes with Jeanette Winterson's lyrical, uninhibited ``The Poetics of Sex'' (1993). Its 32 selections trace a historical pattern in lesbian experience as it moves from invisibility and ambivalence to greater self-acceptance. Many of the pieces are experimental, such as Kathy Acker's sardonic dream vision of heterosexual marriage, and Canadian Nicole Brossard's incantatory monologue meant to close the distance between the speaker, her mother, her daughter and her lover. Among the authors--lesbian, bisexual, heterosexual--are Margaret Atwood, Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, Radclyffe Hall, Katherine Mansfield, Colette, Anais Nin, Isak Dinesen, Monique Wittig, Sara Maitland and Pat Califia. Two pieces feature pictures: Alison Bechdel's comic strip ``Serial Monogamy,'' whose disillusioned protagonist forces readers to reexamine set attitudes about lesbians and straights; and Djuna Barnes's 17th-century pastiche ``Ladies Almanack'' (1928), a daybook of the exploits of a much-in-demand hostess complete with woodcuts. Reynolds, who has written abiography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, enlarges the dimensions of the lesbian experience in this rewarding omnibus. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In the last half-dozen years, collections of lesbian plays, coming-out stories, mysteries, and poetry have been published, mostly by small presses. Now, The Penguin Book of Lesbian Short Stories strides into place alongside the others. This book takes the long perspective, reaching back to Sarah Orne Jewett at the turn of the century, Radclyffe Hall in the Thirties, and Isak Dinesen and Ann Bannon in the late Fifties. Stretching forward, it encompasses contemporary writers such as Jewelle Gomez, Emma Donoghue, Dorothy Allison, and Jeannette Winterson, who supplied the introduction. These stories are like a thick stew containing many types of characters in different settings. Rarely, the editor clarifies a passage with a note, more of which would have been helpful. As Virginia Woolf notes in A Room of One's Own , ``It would be a thousand pities if women wrote like men, . . . for if two sexes are quite inadequate, considering the vastness and variety of the world, how should we manage with one only?'' The many talented writers published here reveal the truth of that assertion. For any public library where demand for short stories is great.-- Lisa Nussbaum, Euclid P.L., Ohio (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
